Halloween treats : Pumpkin Cookies
Baking is the ideal way to spend quality time with your kids after school or on a leisurely weekend afternoon.
As Halloween approaches, my four-year-old son has developed a fascination for eerie ghosts and creepy ghouls.
To embrace the Halloween spirit, we embarked on a fun learning adventure centred around pumpkins. We kicked things off with a practice Halloween session by carving a pumpkin and baking delicious pumpkin-shaped cookies.
For the recipe and step-by-step instructions, make sure to check out our video!
Ingredients
Makes: 16-20 cookies
- 90 grams soft unsalted butter
- 100 grams caster sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 200 grams plain flour (plus more for rolling)
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 150 grams icing sugar (sieved) or 250g Instant Royal Icing (see intro)
- food colouring
Method
- Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the eggs and vanilla. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the butter and eggs, and mix gently but surely.
- Form the dough into a fat disc, wrap in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
- When you are ready, preheat the oven to 180ºC/160ºC Fan/gas mark 4/350ºF.
- Sprinkle a suitable surface with flour, then roll out the disc to a thickness of about half a centimetre. Cut into shapes, dipping the cutter into flour as you go, and place the biscuits a little apart on the baking sheet. You might need to do this in two batches, making sure the baking sheet is cool before placing the second batch.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, by which time they will be lightly golden around the edges. Cool on a rack.
- When they’re all fully cooled, you can get on with the icing. You can use Royal Icing, about 250g (which is half a box) made up not quite as directed on the packet but adding a little more water as I whisk — and not for as long as they request — so that the icing is an easily spreadable consistency.
- Colour the icing as desired: we mixed red and yellow to create orange for the pumpkin.
* Recipe taken from Nigella but tweaked for the kids.
