Soft Sugar Cookies

This is my grandma's recipe. She always makes them at Christmas and Valentine's Day

(and my grandpa helps her frost them because he says she doesn't put enough frosting on!)

Anyway, they are my FAVORITE so I have taken up the tradition as well, except I also make them at Halloween and Easter and any other time I can justify it! :) Oh, and I usually half the recipe and still get 12-15 big cookies.

Soft Sugar Cookies:

Cream:

1 1/2 C. sugar

1 C. shortening

Add:

2 eggs

Alternately add

3 C. flour with:

1 teas. baking soda

2 teas. baking powder

added to the flour

Add:

1 C. Buttermilk (I used 1 C. milk w/ 1 TBS lemon juice added to it)

and 1 teas. Vanilla

Add 3 more C. flour.

Roll and cut out in shapes. Bake at 400* for 7-10 minutes until BARELY browning at the edges. Frost with colored frosting and add sprinkles if you like. YUM!

Spider Cookies

Trix or Treat Spider Cookies

1 package Betty Crocker Double Chocolate Chunk Cookie Mix
1 can of chocolate ready-made frosting
1 can of vanilla ready-made frosting
24-48 Trix orange and green sweetened corn puffs
Toothpicks
Re-sealable plastic bags

* Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
* Mix ingredients for cookies as directed on the package.
* Use a small ice cream scoop to get similar sized cookies or just use a spoon and vary the amount for different size cookies.
* Place cookie dough on a parchment covered baking sheet.
* Bake for about 7-8 minutes.
* Cool completely on a wire rack.
* Makes about two dozen cookies.

To decorate:

* Spread chocolate frosting on the top of each cookie.
* Fill a re-sealable plastic bag with a couple of heaping spoonfuls of frosting and snip a tiny hole out of the bottom of one corner.
* Pipe on three circles of white frosting for each cookie. Start in the middle with the smallest circle and work your way out.
* Take a toothpick and beginning in the center, drag it lightly through each circle. Repeat all the way around the cookie.
* Take remaining frosting and separate it into two bowls. Tint one frosting with orange icing color and the other with green.
* Fill two re-sealable bags with the orange and green frosting and snip off the corner of each.
* Pipe eight small legs with each color and place a matching orange or green Trix Cereal puff on the top of each pair of legs. Add one or several spiders on each cookie.

All-American Mini Apple Pies

I was going to post this recipe anyway but I think it fits perfectly with the Halloween Treats theme, these would be great after a chilly night of trick-or-treating!

• 2 medium tart baking apples (we just used green apples from our tree)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 sheet refrigerated pie crust (1/2 box)

Preheat oven to 425. Peel core and chop apples into 1/4 inch pieces. In medium bowl, combine apples, sugar, flour and cinnamon, tossing gently. Set aside.

Open and unroll pie crust flat onto work surface. Using 4 inch wide bowl or cup cut out five circles, reserving scraps. Press each circle inside 5 spaces of muffin tin.

Evenly divide apple mixture into each prepared muffin cup. Cut reserved dough scraps into 1/4 inch wide. Top each pie with strips. Fill remaining empty muffin cup 1/4 way with water.

Bake until bubbling, about 18 min. Let pies cool in muffin tin, then remove.

I doubled the recipe because I only have a 12 place muffin tin. The pre-made pie crust made these so easy to make, but there is no reason you couldn't use homemade pie crust. The recipe came from Family Favorites Made Easy (those cards you get in the mail trying to get you to sign up for things ) It says you can serve them 3 ways: hot from the oven, room temperature or cold from the fridge. They were tasty and cute (sorry no picture) and I'm glad I found something to do with all our bitter apples!

Bugs in a Blanket

1 can (11 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated breadsticks
24 cocktail-size smoked link sausages (from 14-oz package)
3/4 cup shoestring potatoes (from 1 3/4-oz can)
Ketchup, barbecue sauce or mustard
DIRECTIONS
1. Heat oven to 375°F. Unroll dough; separate at perforations into 12 breadsticks. With knife or kitchen scissors, cut each breadstick in half crosswise, making 24 pieces.
2. Wrap each piece of dough around center of each sausage, pinching to seal and leaving each end of sausage showing. Place seam side down and 1/2 inch apart on ungreased large cookie sheet.
3. Bake 11 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet; place on serving plate or tray. Cool 2 minutes.
4. Insert shoestring potatoes into baked dough to resemble legs and antennae. Decorate "bugs" with dots or stripes of ketchup.
This recipe is straigt from the Pilsbury website, but we had this for lunch last year on Halloween and it was super fun. I didn't use the shoestring potatoes, I used Chow mein noodles instead.

Oreo Ghosts

I just made these for my son's preschool class tomorrow and they turned out pretty cute! Just made them up, so there's not an official recipe.

Ingredients:

White Dipping Chocolate (or bark coating)

Oreos

Sprinkles

Melt the chocolate until smooth and creamy. Dip Oreos in chocolate until completely coated. Remove and place on wax paper to cool and harden. Before they harden completely, add a face with sprinkles. I used bat shaped sprinkles for the eyes and then regular chocolate sprinkles for teeth.

Boo Cups

3-1/4 cups cold milk
2 pkg. (3.9 oz. each) JELL-O Chocolate Instant Pudding
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided
20 OREO Cookies, crushed, divided
30 miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips

BEAT milk and pudding mixes with whisk 2 min. Stir in 1/2 each COOL WHIP and cookie crumbs.
SPOON 1 Tbsp. of the remaining crumbs into each of 15 (6-oz.) plastic cups. Cover with layers of pudding mixture and remaining crumbs.
DROP remaining COOL WHIP by spoonfuls onto desserts to resemble ghosts. Add chocolate chips for the eyes.

Frozen Jack-o-Lanterns

Ingredients:
12 navel oranges
12 cinnamon sticks
1/2 gallon chocolate fudge ice cream
Preparation:
Cut off tops of oranges, about 1/2 to 1 inch from the top. Carefully hollow out the bottoms, leaving a sturdy thick shell, reserving the orange pulp for another use. Hollow out tops. Cut Jack-O-Lantern faces into each orange. Pack chocolate ice cream into shells, being careful to keep ice cream from squeezing out the holes. Cut a hole into top of orange top. Set tops back on, over ice cream, and inset cinnamon stick stem through the hole.Place in freezer for at least 3 to 4 hours, or until serving time.
Makes 12 desserts.