Halloween Cookies 2021

After last year’s unsuccessful attempt at Halloween-themed baking (and I use the term baking in all the wrong ways), I figured it was time to take another stab. I don’t foresee any actual success this time, but the attempt is half the fun. I tell myself that anyway.

The hidden cruelty lies in the presentation on the box. Who wouldn’t want to have a tray of perfectly formed cookies and other assorted confections at the Halloween party you throw for yourself and your imaginary friends? Surely, there is no way to arrive at the same end result without some proper professional decorating equipment. The previews on display are just too perfect.

Never the less I throw it in the shopping cart (Like a real tangible shopping cart. They still exist), and pay the asking price which is likely several times more than just buying pre-made cookies. Insult to injury, I’m sure that it will just be for some stale cookies that will be massacred by crude sugary food dye.

Opening up the package didn’t do much for my confidence. There was a zero percent chance that I would be eating those dry discs, and the frosting pipettes looked to be as effective as using my fingers. The toppings had a decent color scheme in any case, even if I wasn’t quite sure how many of them I would end up using.

I took too many photos, so if you wanted an even closer view of the unadorned cookies (again, I use that term loosely), there they are. Icing/Frosting duties were then split, and one example can be seen over to the right. Cutting the tips of the frosting tubes led to one of two scenarios: either you didn’t trim enough and a microscopic swirl would come out and do its best imitation of freeing an ingrown hair from its fleshy pimply prison, or it would be too much and come out in a glob. You can see the results of both here.

The eyes seem to fair the best in this process, mainly since there is no finesse to the process. You simply hold the pipette in place and keep squeezing until there’s a sizable blob. Slap a spherical topping into the center, and you’re good to go.

Here are my attempts. The back of the box taunts you further as to what you might be able to achieve, but takes it one step further and gives you an illustration, hence all but cementing your failure.

As predicted, there was little room for most of the toppings aside from in a few strategic locations for flair. No worries. I’ll keep them aside for baking projects that could use a more generous helping. Perhaps in another article, and then I can link back here as a reference, and thus increase the cross-page traffic.

I think out of them all, the pumpkin came out almost passable. It does looks sort of like a ginger version of the Pepe the frog clown emoji, but since the rest are downright awful, I can’t complain much.

These will certainly rot in my kitchen until someone has the heart to throw them away.