Halloween Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

{I decorated these cookies. The one one the right is the last little ball of dough, and I pinched a small stem with my fingers.}

{Cutting out the shapes}

I have been searching for the best sugar cookie recipe for awhile now. I am not sure if this is it, but it is pretty darn close. The dough is a great consistency for making cut-out cookies and the flavor is good. My only confusion is that they taste more like a butter cookie than a sugar cookie, which reminds me of shortbread. I think I will keep looking for the perfect sugar cookie recipe, but for now, I will share how these turned out. 

{There's no such thing as too much frosting.}

{Don't forget to add lots of sprinkles.}

{You may have to taste-test to ensure that your cookies are edible.}

{Take pride in your work.}

Possibly the best part of this whole experiment was trying out our jack-o'-lantern cookie cutter that I got on clearance at Jo-Ann's last year after Halloween. It's by Wilton and it has several smaller shapes that you can use to make the facial features, which I think is a cute idea instead of plain pumpkin cookies. For frosting, we used this recipe. Again, I am not sure it is the best one available, but it is the best I have tried so far. It is easy to make and easy to spread, and it made enough so that we could divide it up into different containers for making various colors. We left some plain white for the ghosts, and we mixed red and yellow food coloring to make orange for the jack-o'-lanterns. We also attempted (and failed) to make black for some cats (which we didn't even end up cutting out). It was more of a purplish gray, but it all tastes the same, so purple pumpkins were just fine. We also used green sugar sprinkles decorating (I was thinking of stems; the kids had other ideas.) as well as some other Halloween sprinkles. Making and decorating our Halloween cut-out cookies was good family fun, and I think it may become an annual tradition at our house.