Halloween Cookies Made with Chocolate Cookie Dough

These easy Halloween cookies are made with cocoa powder and are perfect for cutting out different shapes and styles. Wrap a few of these cute Halloween cookies up and gift them to family and friends for some yummy Halloween treats.  

Halloween Cookies Recipe

I know that for most kids, Halloween is an exciting day of the year. The anticipation of dressing up and collecting tons of candy will make any child giddy for the nightfall. But for me, it was always more than just the thought of ending up with a pillow case full of candy.

I loved Halloween for the very same reason I love most holidays; there’s a build-up to the event with traditions and festivities happening before you’re even in costume.

I loved turning on the television days before Halloween to catch Hocus Pocus and Halloweentown airing as a countdown to the big night. I loved going to the pumpkin patch with my dad, enjoying carnival rides and picking out the biggest pumpkin I could find. Then coming home with that pumpkin and digging out all of its slimy insides…there’s not much else a kid can ask for!

While these aren’t Halloween sugar cookies per se, they are one of those Halloween cookie recipes you can rely on for cutting out festive shapes that stay intact as they bake.

Halloween Baking

While there are all sorts of Halloween baking ideas, making Halloween cookies is an activity I’ve done since I was a little girl and it’s one of my favorite ways to celebrate the holiday.

These aren’t spooky Halloween cookies, but they are certainly festive and make for some great Halloween cookies for kids. They’re essentially a chocolate version of Halloween sugar cookies, where you roll the dough out and use your favorite Halloween cookie cutters to get your desired shape.

The dough for these Halloween cookies is fantastic because the shapes you produce will actually stay intact after they’ve baked in the oven, allowing you try out a number of Halloween cookie decorating ideas. 

If you’ve ever made cut-out cookies only to end up with chubby cookies that resemble nothing like what they were supposed to, you’ll understand the importance of what I’m talking about!

Pumpkin Halloween Cookies

I wanted my Halloween cookies to be a representation of the cherished memories I had with my dad at the pumpkin patch, so I decided to cut them out with a pumpkin cookie cutter.

These decorated pumpkin cookies were brightened up with royal icing in two colors, orange and green. If you’re a real artist, you can certainly have fun decorating these, otherwise, the simple way I applied icing is easy enough.

These Halloween cookies are rolled out thin, but they still remain incredibly chewy. If you’re looking for the best Halloween cookies, then look no further!

Halloween Cookies

Yield: 30

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 6 minutes

Total Time: 31 minutes

Chocolate cut-out cookie dough, perfect for holidays and decorating. 

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Ingredients

• 1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 c white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
• 1/3 c baking cocoa
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• flour or cocoa for dusting work surface*

for the icing

• 2 egg whites, room temperature
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar, or a splash of fresh lemon juice
• 3 cups of powdered sugar, sifted
• red, yellow, and green food dyes

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and vanilla; mix to combine.
2. Pour in the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combined and the dough clumps together, pulling away from the sides of the bowl.
3. Lightly dust your work surface with flour or cocoa. Turn your dough out onto the surface and sprinkle a little more flour or cocoa on top of the dough. Using a rolling pin to flatten out your dough with long, gentle strokes (only rolling in one direction), until the dough is 1/8" (3 cm) thin. Use more cocoa or flour as needed, making sure to turn the dough every now and then to keep it from sticking.
4. Use a 2 inch pumpkin cookie cutter to cut out pumpkin shapes. Place the cut-out cookies onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat. You can fit 16 cookies on a sheet at a time, spacing the cookies out from each other. Refrigerate the cookies for 15 minutes.
5. Bake the cookies for 6 minutes, making sure to rotate the cookie sheet halfway through. Let the cookies cool on the pan for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

To create the icing

1. Whisk the egg whites with the cream of tartar or lemon juice just until the egg whites are frothy and have lost some of that yellowish appearance. Then add the powdered sugar in, one cup at a time, whisking after each addition. Once the icing is white and thick, stop mixing.
2. Separate 2 tablespoons of the icing, and dye those 2 tablespoons green for the stems. Dye the rest of the icing orange using the red and yellow dyes (usually 1 drop red, 5 drops yellow). Apply using a food-grade paint brush.

Notes

If you use all-purpose flour to dust your work surface, then the flour may be apparent on your dough after you cut out the shapes (since the dough is chocolate and the flour is white). To remedy this, use a pastry brush to wipe off any extra white flour from the dough once you cut out the shapes. Otherwise, using cocoa powder to dust your work surface will eliminate the need to brush/clean your cookie dough before you bake it (both cocoa and the cookie dough are brown!).

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 30 Serving Size: 30 Servings
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 114