These cute and spooky Halloween sugar cookies are a fun take my classic soft sugar cookies. Cut-out cookies into festive shapes then decorate with a buttercream frosting!
Along with Rice Krispie treats for Halloween, spider cookies and Halloween dirt cake they’re one of my favorite easy Halloween recipes that my family makes every year!
Easy Halloween Sugar Cookies
If you’re looking for a fun and easy cookie recipe that is the perfect recipe for Halloween, these festive Halloween sugar cookies are so fun to decorate! For these homemade cookies, all you need is a few simple pantry ingredients and your favorite Halloween cookie cutters.
When it comes to Halloween desserts, cut-out cookies are a simple way to make a lot at once for Halloween parties or school treats. For parties, I also love to make sugar cookie bars decorated with seasonal sprinkles or I set up stations for Halloween gingerbread houses and witches hat cookies, too!
Halloween Sugar Cookie Recipe Ingredients
- Butter: Softened butter at room temperature combines with the cookie dough best.
- Baking staples: All-purpose flour, granulated sugar, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt.
- Eggs: 2 large eggs also at room temperature.
- Extract: Both vanilla extract and almond extract add the best flavor to the sugar cookie dough.
- Sour cream: My special ingredient that I love to add to cookies to enhance the soft texture.
Frosting Ideas
- These are Halloween frosted sugar cookies so they’ve got a lot of surface area ready to be decorated. There really is no wrong way to do it and kids have so much fun being creative.
- For this Halloween cookie recipe, we’re using a traditional homemade buttercream frosting, in orange, white, and yellow divided.
- Although you can absolutely use cookie icing, cream cheese frosting or royal icing. All are slightly different ranging from sweet to buttery to slightly tart, but all are so yum!
How to Make Halloween Sugar Cookies
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add in eggs, vanilla, almond extract and sour cream. In a separate bowl, mix together dry ingredients then slowly combine wet and dry ingredients. Divide dough into two, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for up to 2 hours.
Once dough has chilled, roll out dough on a baker’s mat or parchment paper. Add another 1/4 – 1/2 cup flour if dough is still sticky. Cut with floured Halloween cookie cutters.
Bake at 350°F for 8-9 minutes, until bottoms are barely golden. Be very careful to not over bake. Remove from oven and cool on pan for 2 minutes and then move to a cooling rack to cool.
Frost and Decorate
Either your regular liquid food coloring or gel food coloring will work for this. Gel food coloring is concentrated so the colors will be much more vibrant. The liquid color, although a bit paler in comparison, is still a great choice.
- For the pumpkin sugar cookies: Frost them orange.
- For the ghosts: Frost them white and add candy eyes.
- For the candy corn: Frost them with white, yellow, and orange. White at the tip and yellow at the base.
No need for any fancy piping bags. A butter knife will do for spreading the frosting.
Tips for the Best Halloween Sugar Cookies
- Mix dough until just combined. Overmixing will keep them from being nice and soft like we want.
- Chilling the dough is a must. The hardest part about the recipe is the waiting! It’s worth it, believe me. This way they won’t spread too thin, and become crispy while in the oven.
- Sticky dough: Roll out the dough on a parchment paper to avoid sticking. Use a little added flour if dough is really sticky. 1/4″ thickness is the perfect height.
- Avoid overbaking: Cookies are done when the bottoms are barely golden. Baking too long will have cause them to brown too much which will change the flavor and texture.
- Cool completely. Otherwise the frosting will melt off the cookie.
- Serving Halloween treats. These look so cute on a fall charcuterie board!
Storing & Freezing
- To store: Once the cookies have cooled, they will keep fresh (and soft) in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days. If they are frosted, place parchment paper in between layers.
- To freeze: Do a flash freeze on a cookie sheet in the freezer for 30 minutes. Then transfer the cookies to a freezer-friendly bag, placing parchment paper in between each layer.
More Halloween recipes to try include these easy Halloween cake pops, Halloween Oreo balls, Halloween veggie tray and Halloween candy popcorn!
More Halloween Recipes
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Halloween Sugar Cookies
Video
Equipment
Ingredients
Cookie dough
- 1 cup butter , at room temp
- 1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs , at room temp
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 cup sour cream
- 5 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
Frosting
- ¾ cup butter
- 3 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 3-4 Tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together the butter and sugar. Beat until creamy. Add in eggs, vanilla, almond extract and sour cream and mix together until combined.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Slowly add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Mix just until combined.
- Split dough in two and place in saran wrap. Refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
- Once dough has chilled, preheat oven to 350°F. Roll out dough on a baker's mat or parchment paper. Add another 1/4 – 1/2 cup flour if dough is still sticky. Cut with floured Halloween cookie cutters.
- Bake for 8-9 minutes, until bottoms are barely golden. Be very careful to not over bake. Remove from oven and allow to cool on pan for 2 minutes and then move to a cooling rack to cool.
- For the buttercream, combine all listed ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Mix with an electric mixer until smooth. Divide into 2-3 bowls. Leave one bowl white and then add orange food coloring into the other. If making candy corn cookies, divide into 3 and add yellow.
- Once cookies are cooled, frost pumpkin cookies with orange frosting. For the ghost, frost with white frosting and add 2 candy eyes. For the candy corn, frost the tip with white, the middle with orange and the top with yellow.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition provided is an estimate. It will vary based on specific ingredients used.
Did you make this recipe? Don’t forget to give it a star rating below!
Categorized as: American, Cookies, Desserts, Freezer-Friendly, Frosted Cookies, Halloween, Holiday Cookies, Kid-Friendly, Vegetarian
Jamielyn Nye is the founder and recipe creator at I Heart Naptime. She is the author of the I Heart Naptime Cookbook and shares easy family-friendly recipes and desserts for every occasion.
My kids loved it , as well as my husband. It makes a lot of dough. Wondering if I can freeze the dough as well.
So glad you loved the Halloween sugar cookies! Yes, you can freeze the dough (sometimes I’ll freeze half and save for Christmas). You can also freeze the cookies plain or frosted.
Where did you find your cute ghost cookie cutter?
It’s the Wilton brand :)
I have used this recipes for a Christmas cookie decorating party. It’s the best recipe for flavorful, soft, chewy cookie.
So happy to hear you love it, Sheila!
These are so cute and easy to make! I love the tang from the sour cream.
Made this over the weekend to get into the Halloween spirit and they came out great! Such a fun and festive Halloween cookie. We all really enjoyed decorating them and even more so eating them!
Made these today with my 2yo and they were great! Thank you!
You are so welcome! I hope you had a great time in the kitchen together :)