I’ve been very into cookie sticks of late. Which is a terribly odd sentence to type, I realize. I’ve always been into candy eyes for Hallowen. Stick some eyes on just about anything and it becomes an instant monster. And so the merging of cookie sticks and candy eyes was inevitable, at least in my mind if no other.

You don’t need any special cookie cutter to cut these out, and they are so simple to decorate. The beauty of monsters, too, is that you can just squeeze the icing around all over the place and it doesn’t matter. Errors can’t be seen on monsters. They just look purposeful and make your monster more interesting. And that’s what makes these ideal for kids to decorate, too.

And boy are they cute. That’s the other benefit of candy eyes. Eyes are so creepy, but candy eyes make stuff cute. I’m very aware of this eye anomaly, by the way.

how to make monster cookie sticks

you will need:*

cookie dough

royal icing

dough scraper or knife

food coloring

disposable decorating bags

couplers

rubber bands

size 3, 4 and 5 decorating tips

candy eyes

*Find the decorating bags, couplers, tips and candy eyes in the craft store. For food coloring, I suggest Americolor Soft Gel Pastes, available in specialty stores and online (Electric Green, Electric Purple, Bright White and Orange used here).   This is the dough scraper I use, HERE, from Sur la Table. You can also use a knife, but this tool makes cutting sticks super easy and consistent, especially with the handy ruler.

step one: make your cookie sticks

Prepare the cookie dough according to the recipe, chill for a couple hours, roll out 1/4-inch thick and use the dough scraper or knife to cut out sticks. My sticks are about 4 1/2 inches long by 1/2 inch wide. Place the sticks on a baking tray lined with parchment paper and bake according to the recipe. Let cool completely.

step two: prepare your royal icing

Prepare royal icing according to the recipe. Divide the icing and tint your preferred colors. I made white, purple, slime green and orange. Prepare decorating bags with couplers and tips, fill with icing and close tightly with rubber bands.

step three: decorate your cookies

Decorate your cookies however you like, with either a size 3, 4, or 5 tip, depending on your preference. For the mummies, I just piped back and forth to make stripes. For the green, fuzzy monsters, I piped close zig zags up and down the cookie. For the purple monsters, I just piped dots. And for the orange monsters, I piped curly cues. Press two eyes into the icing. Let the cookies dry well, preferably overnight, before handling and packaging. For basic cookie decorating instructions, click HERE.

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Click the pics to go to the original how-tos.

zombie marshmallows

googly-eyed cookies

easy chocolate spider pops

Frankenstein marshmallow pops

sparkly spider cookie bites

mummy cookie pops

monster face cookies

easy skellies on a stick (or ghosts and mummies)

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

This is totally not sweet at all, but just had to share with you… So the California Ripe Olives people sent me this super creepy (really, it had spiders all over it) box of Halloween goodies to help promote California Ripe Olives and create a Halloween dish with olives. I went the easy route and made googly-eyed crudites.

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!

Vampires, zombies, mummies, oh my! All the monsters have emerged from under my daughter’s bed.

Here are some monster cookie decorating ideas, all done on simple circles (and one square). I don’t know what evil monster possessed me when I was baking these, because I should’ve put them on sticks. Ah well, these will have to do.

You don’t necessarily need all the accoutrements I used for these: candy melts, confetti sprinkles, edible writer, candy eyes… I happened to have all these items already, I didn’t go out and purchase them, so you may be able to make substitutions based on what you have around the house, such as different sprinkles, candies, etc. for the eyes, or you can pipe all these things with icing. I’m just in a candy eye phase, so that explains that. If you pipe all the decorations with icing, note you also won’t need the light corn syrup, which I use as the glue.

“I don’t know what in the name of blood I’m doing with this lot.”

“Me don’t know what go on.”

“Where’s my mummy?”

“BRRRGGAHHH”

you will need:*
cookie dough
royal icing

*Find the cookie cutters, decorating bags, couplers, decorating tips at the craft store. You’ll also find the candy melts, sprinkles, edible writer and candy eyes, if using, at the craft store. For tips on finding supplies, CLICK HERE. For food coloring, I suggest Americolor Soft Gel Pastes (Super Black, Bright White, Red Red, Electric Purple and Electric Green used here). The size “47″ tip is a long, flat tip for the mummy. Use any comparable tip.

step one: bake your cookies
Roll out chilled cookie dough according to the recipe. Cut out cookies and bake. Let cool.

step two: prepare your icing
Prepare royal icing, divide and tint your colors: Black, white, red, purple and lime green. Prepare decorating bags with couplers and tips. Fill a decorating bag fitted with a size “3″ tip with black, a bag fitted with size “2″ tip with red, and a bag with the “47″ tip with half of your white icing.

Thin the remaining white icing and the green and purple icings with water a few drops at a time, until the consistency of thick glue (turn a spoonful of icing over the bowl and the icing should disappear into itself in about ten seconds). Fill empty decorating bags (so no tips or couplers) with the thinned white, green and purple. Close all the decorating bags tightly with rubber bands.

step three: decorate your backgrounds
Pipe an outline on each of the cookies with black and let set about 15 minutes.

For Dracula and Frank, pipe and fill the hair with black as shown.

Snip about 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch from the tips of the thinned white, green and purple bags, and loosely pipe to fill the cookies (white for Dracula and the mummies, green for Frank, and purple for the zombie), encouraging the icing as needed with a toothpick until the entire cookie is covered. Let the cookies dry well, several hours at least, overnight preferred.

step four: decorate the monsters
When dry, decorate each monster. Switch the tips on the black and red icing to size “2.” To adhere candies, dab light corn syrup with a toothpick to use as glue.

For dracula, adhere candy eyes, then pipe the eyebrows, nose, mouth and fangs and the drop of red blood. For Frankenstein, adhere candy eyes, then pipe the nose, mouth and scars. For the zombie, draw black dots on a candy melt and a jumbo confetti sprinkle and adhere to the cookie. Pipe a black mouth with red blood. For the mummy, adhere candy eyes, then use the white fitted with a size “47″ tip to pipe the bandages.

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I’ve been posting so many eye-treats over at my other blog, so many that I declared an “eye trend” this Halloween, that I figured I better get on posting something here, too. That baking aisle at Michaels is such a dangerous thing. That’s where I got these candy eyes, and I’ve been making quite a bit of use of them.

These are super-simple to make. Just some good ol’ fashioned flooded icing background.

you will need*
cookie dough
royal icing

*Find cookie cutters, decorating bags, couplers, decorating tips, and candy eyes in the craft store. For food coloring, I prefer Americolor Soft Gel Pastes (Electric Purple, Electric Green and Orange used here). For more information on finding supplies, click HERE.

step one: bake your cookies
Roll out chilled cookie dough, cut out your cookies and bake according to the recipe. Let cool completely.

step two: prepare your icing
Prepare royal icing, divide and tint your preferred colors. I made purple, orange and lime green. Prepare decorating bags with couplers and size “3″ decorating tips. Fill with your half of each of your colors and close tightly with rubber bands. Cover reserved icing.


step three: flood the backgrounds
Pipe an outline on a cookie and let set about 15 minutes. Thin the reserved icing of the same color with water, a few drops at a time, until the consistency of thick glue. (Take a spoonful and drizzle it over the bowl. The icing should disappear into itself in 10 seconds. When in doubt, err on the side of slightly too thick.) Fill an empty decorating bag with the thinned icing, snip 1/8 to 1/4 inch off the tip, and loosely pipe the icing to fill the cookie. Use a toothpick to encourage the icing as needed. Let set very well. A few hours at least, but overnight preferred.

step four: add your eyes
Use a toothpick to dab a dot of light corn syrup on the back of a candy eye and attach to the cookie as desired. Let dry.Tweet

Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!