My Frosted Halloween Sugar Cookies are soft, tender and topped with a creamy orange frosting and festive Halloween sprinkles. Each bite is buttery with the perfect texture, making them a fun and delicious addition to any Halloween dessert spread.
Whether you're baking for Halloween parties, classroom treats or just because it's spooky season, these festive Halloween sugar cookies are the perfect way to get creative with decorating. The best part is they’re simple to make, easy to customize, and much fun to frost with kids or friends.
If you love making festive Halloween treats, you have to try our Halloween Brownies and Halloween Sugar Cookie Bars.
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Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Soft and Chewy Texture: The sugar cookie dough bakes up super soft with a slight golden brown edge; similar to Lofthouse cookies.
- No Rolling or Cutting: These are drop-style cookies, so there’s no need for a rolling pin or cookie cutters.
- Easy Frosting: The orange frosting spreads easily and sets with a smooth finish, no royal icing or piping bag required.
- Festive and Customizable: Use different colors, white icing, black icing or any Halloween sprinkles to match your Halloween party theme.
- Perfect for Any Age: These cute Halloween sugar cookies are fun to make and decorate with kids (or your inner child).
Ingredients
With just a quick trip to the grocery store, you will be ready to make these simple Halloween cookies.
See the recipe card below for the exact quantities of each ingredient.
- Granulated Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the perfect texture.
- Greek Yogurt: Adds moisture and tenderness without needing eggs. You can use 1 egg in replace of yogurt if desired.
- Unsalted Butter: Creates a light and fluffy sugar cookie. Also provides flavor and spreadability in the frosting.
- Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar): For a smooth and fluffy frosting texture, while providing sweetness.
For this easy recipe, you'll want to have on hand a stand mixer with paddle attachment, mixing bowl, baking sheets, parchment paper, measuring cups and spoons, offset spatula, spatula and a 3-tablespoon cookie scoop.
Variations
- Almond Extract: Swap half the vanilla for almond extract for a deeper traditional sugar cookie flavor.
- Cream Cheese Frosting: For tangy richness, sub half the butter in the frosting with cream cheese.
- Chocolate Sugar Cookies: Add 1-2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients for a chocolate twist.
- Black Frosting: Go bold and use black gel coloring for spooky Halloween sugar cookies with a dramatic edge.
- Pumpkin Sugar Cookies: Add a tiny bit of pumpkin spice to your sugar cookie dough for a seasonal twist.
- Sprinkle Swap: Use candy eyeballs or Halloween-colored sprinkles to match your spooky style.
How to Make Frosted Halloween Sugar Cookies
These festive sugar cookies come together easily with the help of a stand mixer and a few simple steps.
SUGAR COOKIES:
Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In a medium bowl whisk all-purpose flour, sea salt, baking soda and baking powder. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer cream together sugar and softened butter for about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is mixed well.
Mix pure vanilla extract and Greek yogurt to the batter just until combined.
Add dry ingredients and mix for one minute.
Using a 3-tablespoon cookie scoop, place rolled balls at least 1 ½ inches apart on your lined baking sheet as they will spread.
Bake for about 9-10 minutes or until the edges start to get golden. Repeat on a cool baking sheet until all your dough is used up.
Cool fully then start your frosting.
FROSTING:
In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, add icing sugar and butter and cream together until smooth. If you want a slightly lighter, slightly thinner frosting add up to 1 tablespoon of milk, adding 1 teaspoon at a time (I added 1 full tablespoon).
Add orange food coloring and mix again until fully incorporated.
Generously add about 2-3 tablespoons of frosting and spread over cooled cookies with an offset spatula.
Add any Halloween sprinkles desired (note: you will want to lightly press them in or place your sprinkles on a shallow plate and dip with light pressure to adhere).
Hint: Use room temperature ingredients for the best results. Make sure your butter is softened, and your yogurt is not cold.
Recipe Tips
- Use a Cookie Scoop: Using a cookie scoop ensures a uniform cookie size and even bake time.
- Cool Before Frosting: Frosting will melt on warm cookies, cool them completely for the best results.
- Avoid Overmixing: Mixing just until combined gives you delicious and light sugar cookies with the perfect texture.
- Mini Cookies: For a smaller bite-sized cookie, use a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop and bake at 350F for 7 minutes.
For another easy themed recipe try our Halloween Crockpot Candy.
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Storage Instructions
- Room Temperature: Store frosted cookies in an airtight container for up to 3-4 days.
- Refrigerator: For longer storage, place in a sealed container with plastic wrap between layers for up to 7 days.
- Freezer: Freeze undecorated cookies in a freezer bag or airtight container for up to 2 months. Decorate after thawing if you can; sprinkles that are too cold will start to bleed and run when they start to warm up.
Serving Suggestions
- More Halloween Treats: Leftover Halloween Candy Cookies, Halloween Brownies, Chocolate Cake Mix Cookies.
- Spooky Drinks: Halloween Sangria, Witches' brew punch, Alien Brain Haemorrhage Shot.
Frosted Halloween Sugar Cookie Recipe FAQs
While you could use royal icing, these cookies do to bake with a flat top that is more ideal for detailed decorating.
Nope! This is a no-chill sugar cookie recipe, perfect for quick baking.
This dough is best for drop cookies and might spread too much if you tried a roll-out and cut method.
Gel food colouring works best, it gives vibrant icing colors with a small amount.
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Frosted Halloween Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- Stand Mixer
- Baking Sheet
- Parchment Paper
- Measuring Cups and Spoons
- Spatula
- Mixing Bowl
- 3 Tablespoon Cookie Scoop
- Offset Spatula
Ingredients
SUGAR COOKIES:
- 250 grams all-purpose flour about 2 cups
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 200 grams granulated sugar about 1 cup
- 1 stick butter, unsalted softened
- ⅓ cup Greek yogurt
- ½ tablespoon pure vanilla extract
FROSTING:
- 230 grams icing sugar about 2 cups
- 12 tablespoon butter softened (¾ stick)
- 1 tablespoon whole milk
- orange food coloring optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a medium bowl whisk all-purpose flour, sea salt, baking soda and baking powder. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer cream together sugar and softened butter for about 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is mixed well.
- Mix pure vanilla extract and Greek yogurt to the batter just until combined.
- Add dry ingredients and mix for one minute.
- Using a 3-tablespoon cookie scoop, place rolled balls at least 1 ½ inches apart on your lined baking sheet as they will spread.
- Bake for about 9-10 minutes or until the edges start to get golden. Repeat on a cool baking sheet until all your dough is used up.
- Cool fully then start your frosting.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, add icing sugar and butter and cream together until smooth. If you want a slightly lighter, slightly thinner frosting add up to 1 tablespoon of milk, adding 1 teaspoon at a time (I added 1 full tablespoon).
- Add orange food coloring and mix again until fully incorporated.
- Generously add about 2-3 tablespoons of frosting and spread over cooled cookies with an offset spatula.
- Add any Halloween sprinkles desired (note: you will want to lightly press them in or place your sprinkles on a shallow plate and dip with light pressure to adhere).
Video
Notes
- Use room temperature ingredients for the best results. Make sure your butter is softened, and your yogurt is not cold. Using a cookie scoop ensures a uniform cookie size and even bake time.
- Mixing just until combined gives you delicious and light sugar cookies with the perfect texture.
- Frosting will melt on warm cookies, cool them completely for the best results.
- For a smaller bite-sized cookie, use a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop and bake at 350F for 7 minutes.
Nutrition
Made this recipe? Share your experience in the comments and don’t forget to leave a star rating so others can find it too.
Eva Filer says
These cookies are the perfect ratio of buttery, soft, chewy, and crumbly. Topped with just the right amount of sweet frosting they are great to whip up any time of year!
Courtney says
These cookies were super nostalgic! The cookies were so soft and tender and the icing made them feel super special. Also, these were the perfect excuse to go buy some Halloween sprinkles and prepare for my favorite season 🙂
Eva Filer says
Oh, I love that Fall is your favorite season- mine too! They are such a good cookie, we make them for all seasons with different color too! Glad you enjoyed them.
Abi says
Cookies with frosting is just amazing, not only kids adults like it too! Bookmarking the recipe!
Eva Filer says
Enjoy them!