Halloween Sugar Cookies

The holidays are upon us which means holiday baking! I love fall time especially because of all the pumpkin smells. I’m really excited for Christmas baking, but Halloween is a great excuse to get a head start on all those yummy treats! The classic frosted sugar cookie is a hit at our house. My girls love making and decorating them. We usually always bake them for Valentines Day, Halloween, and Christmas each year. This year we baked some up and delivered as our “You’ve Been Booed” treat to a couple of neighbors. We of course saved a bunch for ourselves to eat too because they are soooo delicious. Below is the recipe I always use that comes from my aunt Betsy. It’s the best!

Sugar Cookies Recipe

2 cups sugar
1 cup softened butter
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk

Cream the softened butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time until blended. Add the vanilla. Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Alternately add the flour and buttermilk to the creamed mixtured and mix until combined. You may need to add a little more flour until the dough isn’t too sticky. Knead it and roll it out to make shapes. Bake in 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. Let cookies cool then frost with a buttercream frosting.

*I never usually have buttermilk on hand so before I begin combining ingredients, I pour out 1 cup of milk in my liquid measuring cup then add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to it and let sit until I’m ready to use it (stir it first). This will turn it into buttermilk. You can use 1 tablespoon of lemon juice instead of vinegar, too.

**A trick I’ve learned when making cookies is to use unsalted butter. It took me many years to realize this is the best way to get perfect cookies every time. If you use salted butter, you may need to use less salt than the recipe calls for, but that is a little risky because you don’t necessarily know how much salt is in a particular brand of butter. Unsalted, every time! Also, I never use margarine in any of my baking to avoid the use of trans fats. I think butter tastes better anyway!

I let my kids crack the eggs all by themselves. I only had to fish out one small shell so they did pretty good!

We used this opportunity of decorating cookies as a little learning experience too. We watched as red & yellow turned the frosting into orange and blue & red turned into purple. The girls thought that was very cool. Also, after the girls finished decorating their cookies, they had to taste test a bite out of each one so we didn’t end up giving their cookies to neighbors – ha!

Deliciously chewy and adorable sugar cookies 🙂