Halloween is almost here! These goulish cookies are a cute, easy addition to your costume party menu. Or make them just because and let your kids think you're the coolest mom on the planet. Because you are, right?! Right.
I'm a huge fan of easy treats that also taste good. Sometimes they look so cute then you take a bite and... suddenly those cute treats have lost all their appeal. Am I the only one who experiences this?! I hope not. At any rate, these are so tasty, probably because they have a giant marshmallow hiding under all that frosting.
You can make your own amazing sugar cookies, or you can cheat like I did and bust out the Pillsbury. It all depends on how quickly you're trying to get these little goblins done.
Ingredients:
Cooked & cooled Sugar Cookies
18-24 large marshmallows
White Frosting:
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup melted plain shortening {don't use the butter flavor variety- you want this to stay white!}
- 3-5 TBSP hot water
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 2 TBSp melted butter
- 1/8 tsp Wilton black coloring
Cook your sugar cookies, trying to leave some uneven edges. The operative word here is TRY. You can see how I tried to shape my cookies above. And now look below- they smoothed out like they weren't even shaped at all. It's OK, they'll still look good! Put them to cool on a cooling rack.
Whisk together the ingredients for the white frosting. If you have meringue powder, you can use that in place of the shortening but I didn't have any on hand. Shortening works well- just put the 1/3 cup in a bowl and microwave it until it's melted. Then whisk together with the sugar and water, adding additional tablespoons of water until the frosting is smooth and runny enough that it drips off the whisk easily.
Now that you have the white frosting done, let's melt the marshmallows a bit so that they meld to the top of the cookie. I sprayed a silicone baking mat, but you can just spray a plate with cooking spray and use that instead if you don't have a mat. Marshmallow is sticky and you don't want them to stick to whatever it is you're melting them on, so use a good amount of non-stick spray. Set the marshmallows out with an inch or two between them. Put them in the microwave and heat them just until they begin to puff up, about 15-20 seconds.
Now we frost the cookies. This is the easy part! Grab a spoon and just spoon the white frosting over the top of the marshmallow on the cookies. The idea is to cover it completely, and have frosting on the entire face of the cookie. Some will run off. If you don't want to make a frosting mess, put a cutting board or something under the cooling rack that the cookies are on, to catch the frosting as it runs off.
Whisk together the ingredients for the black frosting. Now use a rubber scraper to transfer that frosting to a small ziplock baggie. Once the ghost cookies have sat about 10 minutes or so, snip a tiny part of one corner of the black frosting bag and frost eyes and a long mouth. Let the frosting dry, then just use your finger to pat down any point edges to the eyes/ mouth.
Voila- 3-D Ghost Cookies. Enjoy!
