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Any regular reader will know how much I love baking with the kids and there is nothing quite like seasonal baking to get your in the mood throughout the year. As a family we’re not into Halloween quite as much as many people but we do still love a Halloween bake or dish to get us in the mood!

Our latest creation has been easy Halloween Shortbread Cookies with icing, the perfect bake for Halloween and a great one to make and decorate with children. With so many different cookie cutters available, you can make all different kinds of Halloween shapes, creating shortbread Halloween biscuits that are perfect for an after school treat, for Halloween party bags or for a buffet spread.

How to make Halloween biscuits

Just like Halloween sugar cookies, this Halloween cookie recipe is made with butter, sugar and flour plus a little vanilla for flavouring. Our best shortbread Halloween cookies are made with our traditional 3, 2, 1 shortbread recipe with three parts flour, two parts butter and one part sugar. This makes it really easy to double to make more cookies or halve to make less.

For these easy shortbread Halloween cookies, we use unsalted butter but you can always use salted butter or even margerine if you don’t have any butter to hand. We also use caster sugar but golden caster sugar or granulated sugar work well too. I would hate for you to not bake this recipe just because you have the wrong type of sugar – please just use what you have to hand, they will still be delicious!

We also use plain flour for this simple Halloween shortbread cookies recipe and they last really well for a few days in an airtight container – but they never seem to last that long in our house!

How to decorate these simple Halloween cookies

To decorate Halloween icing cookies you simply use a mix of icing sugar and water. Make sure you add the water little by little as you don’t want it too runny, and mix well to make sure any lumps are removed. Icing is really the making of any Halloween biscuits recipes and you can decorate the old fashioned shortbread Halloween cookies however you like – and it’s the perfect time to get the children involved too!

For our simple Halloween biscuits, I used pumpkin and spider cookie cutters but you could use ghost ones, witch ones, bat ones or anything else you feel like. I also decorated mine really basically but I would recommend investing in a biscuit decorating kit or piping bag set so you can do more intricate designs if you feel like it. It really is a great way to make a simple Halloween biscuit recipe stand out so much more!

I finished the Halloween shaped cookies with edible eyes to add some personality and make them instantly something the children will love. These Halloween easy cookies are so simple to make, easy to decorate and utterly delicious!

If you’d like to give these fall shortbread cookies as gifts, simply put them in individual bags and tie with a ribbon – or add a Halloween sticker – and they will make a lovely gift for the end of term or a Halloween party bag.

If you’re looking for more autumnal or Halloween recipes to make, here’s our Mummy Meatballs, Pumpkin Fudge, Halloween Fudge and Halloween Jelly Oranges recipes. You can see all our recipes to date here if you’d like inspiration outside of autumn and Halloween. Happy Baking!

You can make this recipe simply with things you already have in your kitchen but here are the things we use in case there’s something you don’t already have:

As you can see, it’s all things you probably have already – that is what makes cookies so simple and convenient to make.

Here’s our super easy recipe for Shortbread Halloween Cookies:

Makes: 20 biscuits

Ingredients

100g caster sugar
200g unsalted butter at room temperature
300g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla essence

To decorate:

Recipe

Preheat oven 170C/325F/Gas 3
Lightly butter or line two baking trays.
Cream butter and the sugar in a large mixing bowl before gradually adding the flour and vanilla and mixing until a dough forms.
Roll the shortbread dough out onto a lightly floured surface until it is about a cm thick. Cut into shapes using cookie cutters and place evenly spaced on the baking sheets with a little bit of spreading room.
Prick each biscuit with a fork.
Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven until the cookies are just starting to brown on top.
Leave to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
When completely cooled, mix icing sugar with a little water until a good consistency is formed. Add food colouring until your desired colours are create and decorate! I decorated mine by hand but I’d advise using piping bags, piping bottles or a cookie decorating kit to make the process easier!

If you’d like to pin or print the Shortbread Halloween Cookies recipe for later you can do so at the bottom of the page. Enjoy!

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