Five Unique Halloween Cookie Recipes

Unlike their Christmas cousins, good unique Halloween cookie recipes aren't so easy to find. Sure, you could make plain old sugar cookies and shape them into jack-o-lanterns and witches' hats or frost them black and orange, but that's what everyone does. Boring!

The problem is no matter how fancy you decorate those cookies, they all taste the same and they'll all pretty much look the same when they're piled together on the Halloween party refreshments table or set out as an after-school snack.

The recipes here are different. Each of the Halloween cookie recipes in this list has a unique look and flavor. Take your pick from spiders, witches' fingers, graveyard bones, pumpkins and owls or make some of each to really jazz up your Halloween party table.

Spider Cookies

Who doesn't love eating spiders, especially when they're covered in chocolate? These spider cookies take just minutes to make, look pretty creepy, and go "crunch" just like the real thing.

Ingredients:

1 pound of chocolate confectioners' (cake) coating
8-ounce package chow mein noodles
16-ounce package of M&Ms or small package of other red candy

Directions:

Coarsely chop the chocolate coating. Melt it with a few tablespoons of water in a double-boiler or heat-proof glass bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Stir constantly until the chocolate is thoroughly melted and smooth. Remove from heat and stir in the chow mein noodles so they're completely covered in the chocolate. Spoon out about two tablespoons per cookie onto waxed paper. Press slightly to flatten and add two red candies to create the spider's eyes. Let cool completely before serving.

Witches' Fingers

Good old witches' fingers are the traditional Halloween cookies recipe in many homes, but there's a lot you can do to set yours apart from those other ho-hum dismembered digits.

Mix in a little cocoa powder to give the fingers a more realistic skin color. Shape each cookie to form a "knuckle" and score the knuckle lightly with a knife to create lifelike wrinkles. For something different, add green food coloring, make the fingers a little shorter and fatter than average, and you've got goblins' fingers.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup sliced almonds
Yellow or green food coloring (optional)
3 tablespoons cocoa powder (optional)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and add the vanilla. If you want to use food coloring, add two or three drops now.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar. If you want to use cocoa powder for coloring, add it to these ingredients. Gradually add this to the butter-sugar mixture, blending well. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for one hour.
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Prepare a Teflon baking sheet or grease a non-Teflon baking sheet. Shape each cookie into the size and shape of a finger as described above. Add a sliced almond to one end to create a "fingernail." Bake the cookies for 6 to 8 minutes or until they're a very light golden brown.

Graveyard Bones

There are a number of different "bones cookies" recipes out there, but most of them are nothing more than biscotti or stick cookies. Even at a Halloween party, you'd have to actually label them "bones" for people to get the idea.

These meringue cookies do a lot better than that: they actually look like bones. They take a little more patience to make than biscotti do, but the result is well worth the effort.

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups sugar
Pinch of salt
5 egg whites
Pinch of cream of tartar
1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 220 degrees. Mix together sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar mixture, beating constantly. Beat until stiff peaks form and the meringue is shiny and smooth. Add flavoring, then beat to blend in.

Put the meringue into a pastry bag or a plastic bag with one bottom corner cut off. Line two cookie sheets with wax paper. Squeeze out sticks of about 3 inches long from the pastry bag onto the cookie sheet. On the end of each stick, squeeze out two round balls side by side. To repair any mistakes, dip your finger in water and use it to smooth out the rough spots. Bake the cookies for 30 minutes, then turn off the heat. Let them rest in the oven untouched overnight.

Pumpkin Bars

There's nothing particularly scary about these Halloween snacks, but they do include one of the holiday's most important symbols. These flavorful, lightly spiced pumpkin bars are also a nice change from sugary Halloween candy.

Ingredients:

4 eggs
1 2/3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
15 ounces pumpkin puree
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Use an electric mixer to blend the eggs, sugar, oil, and pumpkin and cinnamon together until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Thoroughly stir the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture.

Pour the batter into a non-greased 10x15-inch ovenproof pan and bake for 30 minutes. Check on the bars regularly because they burn rather easily. They taste great plan, but you a little cream cheese frosting also compliments them well. For this frosting, just blend 3 ounces of cream cheese with 1/2 cup butter and then stir in then gradually blend in 2 cups of confectioner's sugar.

Owl Cookies

As spooky creatures of the night go, the owl is a lot less overdone during Halloween than black cats. That makes it perfect for a collection of unique Halloween cookies.

Ingredients:

Use the recipe from the Witches' Fingers cookies recipe found earlier in this article or your favorite peanut butter cookie recipe. If you're using the Witches' Fingers recipe, add three tablespoons of cocoa powder in with the flour to give the owls a little color. You'll also need:

16 ounce package of M&Ms or other brown candy-coated chocolates
1/2 cup shelled cashews or candy corn

Directions:

When you have the dough made, chill it in the refrigerator for one hour. Set aside five tablespoons of dough. For each cookie, spoon out about four tablespoons of dough into a mound. Flatten with the bottom of a glass to about 1/8 of an inch thick. This will be the owl's face. Now use some of the reserved dough to form pointed owl ears. Add two brown candy-coated chocolates for eyes and a cashew or piece of candy corn (fat end up) for the beak. In an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees, bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Halloween cookies recipes that aren't the "same 'ol same 'ol" aren't so easy to find, but these five recipes should give you a start. Just make sure you try more than one. The trick to an attractive plate of Halloween cookies is to make relatively small batches of a variety of different cookies so they'll look more appealing and your tastes buds won't get bored.