How to Make Trick-or-Treater Cookies

When I think about Halloween trick-or-treating, I have fond memories of the awesome costumes I had as a kid. By "awesome," I mean uncomfortable. If you were a child of the 80s, you know what I mean. They were full-body, vinyl suits that you would wear over your normal clothes, with a plastic mask that you could barely see or breathe through. Death traps, really. 80s kids were more adventurous back then. Thankfully, parents realized the potential suffocation hazards and those costumes are now a thing of the past. Good times.

Anyhoo, thinking of those retro death traps gave me the idea to make these (totally safe) trick-or-treater cookies! The concept of these cookies were developed from ideas of the always-inspiring, Sweet Sugarbelle. Her candy bucket cookies from last year went immediately on my got-to-do list. Also, I always loved the deconstructed concept of her dancing elves and Santas. (Three cookies > one cookie, amirite?) I combined her two ideas and came up with these trick-or-treater cookies. Here's how you can make them yourself.

Warning: Because there are three cookies involved, this post is a little long; so get comfortable.

Template for Trick-or-Treater Cookies

I provided a template to help guide you during the decorating process. You can download the Trick-or-Treat Cookie template HERE.

If you have a Kopykake or Pico projector, just print it out (or pull it up on your mobile device) and you are ready to decorate. For those without a projector, follow the suggested steps below by tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

In this template file, I provided all three designs for Frankenstein, the ghost, and the vampire. However, for simplicity, I'm demonstrating just the ghost for this tutorial.

Trick-or-Treater Candy Bucket Cookie

These trick-or-treater cookies consist of three separate parts. Let's start with the one I think is most fun, the middle candy bucket cookie.

Preparing the Dough

To make the candy bucket cookie, I used a skull cookie cutter from this Betty Crocker set. Just flip it upside-down and trim off the top with a larger circle cutter, as shown below.

Decorating Process

Step 1

Begin by outlining the top area with royal icing in the color of the "shirt" for the trick-or-treater. Since this will be for the ghost cookie, so I used white icing. Next, outline the bottom area with orange icing. You should have an eyelet shape left in the middle.

Once the sections are outlined, flood the centers with the corresponding icing colors. Leave the icing to dry for about one hour.

Step 2

Once the base layer of icing had time to dry, outline a pair of fists over the top "shirt" area using a #1.5 tip. White-on-white was hard to see in the picture, so I included the vampire cookie (right side) for a visual aid.

Step 3

Next, carefully flood between the knuckle detail of the fists. Make sure not to go over the outlines so you can create knuckle dimension with the icing.

Step 4

Next, add the handle detail with black icing, the two thumbs, and whatever detail you would like on the bucket. For this example, I just added a jack-o-latern face. Leave the cookie to dry completely before moving on to the next step.

One quick note, the white-on-white fists for the ghost cookie just wasn't doing it for me. It was very difficult to see the fist detail with it being the same color. So, I went over the fist outline with a contrasting, light gray blue, colored icing. I would recommend subbing out this step in Step 2 above.

Step 5

Now comes the fun part. Flood the empty middle, eyelet section with white flood icing. Then, with Halloween edible sequins, sprinkle over the wet icing. Carefully shake off the excess.

Trick-or-Treater Head Cookie

Preparing the Dough

The heads of this trio of trick-or-treaters were made with common cookie cutters you might already own.

For Frankenstein, I used a skull from a set I think I purchased at Wal-Mart. If you can't find this exact one, I'm sure you can get creative using any other skull-shaped cutter of similar size. For the vampire, it's just a regular ol' circle cutter. And for the ghost, I used this tombstone cutter, which I'll demonstrate how to decorate below.

Decorating Process

Step 1

Begin by applying a thin layer of flesh toned, medium consistency icing to the top half of the cookie. I used an offset spatula to spread a thin, smooth, even layer. Let this layer dry for about one hour.

Step 2

Next, outline around the cookie, as well as two ovals in the middle for eye holes, with white icing. Then flood the middle as shown below. Use a toothpick to help get into the thin area between the holes. Let this layer dry for another hour.

Step 3

After the white layer had time to dry, carefully add the eyes. They can be any shape you want, but I went for almond-shaped eyes. Use white medium consistency icing first, then quickly add a dot of black icing for the pupils.  

To match the fist outline on the candy bucket cookie I added an outline around the white detail with the same light gray blue icing.

Trick-or-Treater Feet Cookie

Preparing the Dough

For the trick-or-treaters' feet, I used a boots cutter from this Christmas cutter setI bought last year. Since then, Wilton has also come out with this Halloween set that also has the same boots cutter. Actually, any of the boots cutters from those two sets would be great options to use for these trick-or-treaters. I just went with the green one for simplicity.

Decorating Process

Step 1

First, outline the white details, as shown below. Use the template as a guide. Then fill the middles with flood icing. Leave to set for about 15 minutes.

Step 2

Next, outline the pants and inner shoe detail with royal blue and red icing, respectively. For added dimension, flood opposing sections at a time. Once those sections set, fill the remaining two sections.

Step 3

Lastly, add the final details by outlining the white sections in the light gray blue icing and adding the lace details, as shown below.

When you place all three cookies together, the set should look like this cute guy below.

Frankenstein is just as cute.

As well as little vamp. Just by modifying the feet design slightly and choosing a different head, you can create a whole new character.

Here's the trio together, but I added "Trick," "Or," and "Treat" to each bucket. (The font I used was this Rustler font.)

These were just three ideas for trick-or-treat cookie characters. There is a lot of inspiration out there you can use to create more. Here are just a few links worth seeing to inspire you to make your own unique, trick-or-treating monsters.

• Four Monsters, One Cutter by Clough'D 9 Cookies
• Various Halloween costumes with a gnome cutter by Color Me Color
• Little Monster Cookies by The Bearfoot Baker
• Halloween Cookies No Cutter Required by LilaLoa
• Funny Frankenstein Cookies by Sweet Sugarbelle