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Get ready for Halloween with these super simple Jack o Lantern cookies!  Start with dough already dyed to save yourself time with these fun Halloween treats!

Do you remember those slice and bake cookies?  Pillsbury puts them out for every single holiday so that you can enjoy hearts for Valentine’s Day, bunnies at Easter, turkeys at Thanksgiving, snowmen during the winter months, black cats at Halloween.  The list goes on and on but you see my point.  So when I happened upon this recipe for DIY heart slice and bake cookies perfect for Valentine’s Day I knew I wanted to try it for myself.  But with Halloween around the corner I thought hearts might be a little out of place.  Pumpkins seemed a little more complicated with their different shape but I was willing to give it a go anyway!

I dyed my sugar cookie dough orange and left some white and cut out the pumpkins with a pumpkin cookie cutter that upon further inspection was probably really an apple but they turned out pumpkin-y enough for me!  After rolling the remaining dough flat I carefully wrapped it around the cut out pumpkins, wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerated it so it was nice and solid for the slicing and baking part of our experiment.

I wasn’t expecting perfection when I cut into the roll of cookie dough but what I got definitely made me chuckle.  And then shake my head.  Because my pumpkins kind of looked like bunnies although I have no idea how that was really possible.  Plus the white dough wasn’t sticking at all to the orange dough so there were gaps between what was supposed to be the pumpkin and the dough surrounding it.  I’m not sure if it was the result of too much flour or the dough being too cold or my inability to create a baked good that a fifth grader cannot make.  Ah, well.

Luckily my baking fail is your gain and I was able to salvage my attempt at pumpkin slice and bake cookies and turn them into these super simple jack o’ lantern cookies instead!  And honestly I might be making a lot more sugar cookies like this in the future.  Starting with a colored sugar cookie instead of having to decorate a white one with multiple shades of royal icing is so much easier.  Plus there’s no waiting for multiple layers of icing to set which makes it perfect for lazy bakers like me!

What is your favorite holiday treat from childhood?

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Jack o Lantern Cookies

Yield: 3 dozen

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 8 minutes

Total Time: 28 minutes

Get ready for Halloween with these super simple Jack o Lantern cookies! Start with dough already dyed to save yourself time with these fun Halloween treats!

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Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 sticks salted butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Orange gel food coloring

Instructions

1. Cream butter and sugar together until pale yellow. Add egg and vanilla and mix until well combined.
2. Sift dry ingredients into wet ingredients and mix until the dough forms a ball around the paddle.
3. Mix in gel food coloring until dough reaches your desired shade.
4. Roll dough immediately between a silicone baking mat and a piece of parchment or wax paper about 1/4" to 1/2" thick.
5. Cut out cookies. Remove and re-roll excess dough.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 7-9 minutes.