Monster Sugar Cookies are a little bit spooky and a whole lot adorable. Make these easy Halloween Cookies to add some colorful fun to your Halloween parties!
Love Monsters? Spooky eyes are so fun in this Monster Cookie Dough Fudge and sprinkled on this delicious Monster Cookie Cheese Ball dessert!
Halloween Sugar Cookies
Looking for some Halloween cookie ideas? These swig sugar cookies were so fun to make!
With a little vanilla buttercream frosting and a few key decorations, it was easy to turn plain cookie shapes into silly looking monsters, just in time for Halloween.
Why should Christmas and Valentine’s Day get all the decorated sugar cookies? My kids and I loved coming up with creative ways to turn our cookies into edible monsters.
The nice thing is, these look best when they’re perfectly imperfect! So, if you’re not an expert in how to decorate sugar cookies, monster cookies are a great place to start.
Sure, I could have gone all crazy detailed, made some royal icing and painstakingly decorated each one to look like a spooky creature of the night. But, frankly, I like the taste of fluffy buttercream more.
Ingredient Notes
To make my monster treats, I started with a simple sugar cookie recipe.
SECRET ADDITION: This one also has a little lemon zest and a touch of nutmeg for more flavor, along with lots of vanilla.
While I used vanilla bean paste, you could substitute vanilla extract or vanilla sugar without sacrificing flavor.
Then, I rolled the dough nice and thick so the cookies would have a pillowy texture similar to Lofthouse cookies, and cut them into squares and circles.
Cookies on a Stick
I love the way decorated sugar cookies look when they’re propped up on sticks like lollipops! You can arrange them into all kinds of fun “bouquets.”
To serve these on a stick, insert a lollipop stick into each cookie cut out before baking. You want the stick to go in about 3/4 of an inch or so. Then place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for about 10 minutes.
The cookies will be SOFT when you take them out!
Sugar Cookies with Buttercream
In case you’re new to the delicious world of buttercream, allow me to introduce you. As far as frostings go, this sugar cookie frosting is one of the easiest and most versatile!
You can spread it onto layer cake, swirl it over cupcakes and use it as a base for Buttercream Truffles. Okay, and if I have a tupperware of leftover buttercream in the fridge, chances are good I’ll sneak a spoonful here and there. There are worse vices, right?
- Spread some fluffy marshmallow frosting on the cookies for a sweet twist.
- Our sour cream frosting would be tasty too! Add vanilla or almond extract for a delicious twist. Lemon extract would also taste great.
How to Decorate Sugar Cookies
You can go as detailed or as simple as you want with this Halloween cookies. To make them like we did with a variety of monsters and creatures, divide the frosting into four bowls.
Add food coloring to three of the bowls. We did one in green, one in purple and one in black, then left the last bowl white.
- For mummy cookies: Frost each round cookie white. Press in candy eyes. Put remaining frosting into a pastry bag and pipe onto cookie using tip #5.
- For spider cookies: Frost round cookie white. Press a mini oreo cookie into the center. Using your black frosting, pipe spider legs legs onto cookie. Dot the eyeballs on the bottom with black frosting!
- For Frankenstein’s monster: Frost square cookies green. Using black frosting, pipe hair and mouth. Add candy eyes.
- For One Eyed Purple People Eater: Color each circle cookie purple. Place one candy eye in center and a candy corn on top for the horn.
Keep it Easy
Have fun mixing and matching different kinds of monsters! This recipe makes 60 cookies, so you’ll have a LOT to play with.
Of course, if you want an easier treat, you can keep it simple:
Spread buttercream frosting on each cookie, then decorate with a combination of orange, black and yellow sprinkles. They taste like Halloween lofthouse cookies.
Easy, festive and always delicious! Try our royal icing recipe next!
More Halloween Recipes
- Spider Rice Krispie Treats
- 3 Ingredient peanut butter cookies – decorated for Halloween!
- Halloween Muddy Buddies
- Halloween 7 Layer Dip – with web!
- Red Velvet Cake Balls – with spooky eyeballs
- Frankenstein Rice Krispie Treats
Easy Cookie Recipes
See all Cookies recipes
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Monster Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies:
- 2 cups unsalted butter softened
- 2 ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
- 1 cup milk
- 8 cups all purpose flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 lemon zested
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 ½ Tablespoon light corn syrup
For the Frosting:
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 9 cups powdered sugar
- ¼ cup corn syrup
- ½ cup milk
- 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Decorations:
- mini oreo cookies
- black green, purple food coloring
- sprinkles
- candy corn
- candy eyes
Instructions
- For the cookies, beat butter and sugar for 3 minutes. Add eggs, vanilla paste and milk, beat until blended. Add in remaining ingredients. Dough may be sticky. Place on a well floured surface and roll to about 1/4 inch thick (the key to getting them like a lofthouse cookies is to roll them thicker). Cut into circle and square shapes using a 3inch cookie cutter.
- If you want some of your cookies on sticks, slide lollipop stick under each cut out cookie and press gently.
- Place cookies on parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake in a 325 degree oven for 10-12 minutes. Cookies will be soft. Cool completely.
- For the frosting, beat butter for 3 minutes until fluffy. Add in corn syrup, milk, vanilla and powdered sugar. Beat an additional 5 minutes until thick and fluffy!
- Divide frosting into bowls to color. Add food coloring (I use Americolor gel) to tint to desired colors. Frost and enjoy.
These are too cute! Oh my! I laughed at what the dog did.
OMG I can’t believe that!! Poor pup!! I want to eat 50 cookies and not get sick though!
very cute, i smiled.
I can’t decide which one is my favorite, because they are all so cute!
The spider is so well done! Good job on them all.
These are adorable! I want to throw a halloween party just so I have an excuse to pass them out.
So darn CUTE! I love the one eyed monster. 🙂
So cute!
These cookies are so cute!!! Oh my gosh, kids must love them. You did such a beautiful job decorating them!!
Hi Aimee, these cookies are adorable in the bright orange bucket! Oh and we have a chocolate lab (Chocolate Moose) and I know just what you mean! We love him so much, but he is a bit ADHD and a counter cruiser! Moose also would have eaten them all and then gone and gotten his head stuck in a box of cereal, if he could.
Have a good day, Nancy
Oh my gosh- 50 cookies?!?! I couldn’t help laughing, but that’s kind of scary! She MUST have had some stomach pain 🙂
And these are absolutely adorable. I’m obsessed with the Cyclops!
Sues
My son would LOVE these cookies–they are soooo adorable! I can’t believe your dog ate 50 cookies without getting sick, though. She lucked out (or you did). =)
These are so cute!! I am just lacking the Halloween inspiration this year 🙁 Can NOT believe your dog at 50 cookies, and didn’t get sick – crazy!
I cannot believe she ate all those and did not get sick! Sounds like something my dog would do. These are so adorable, and I have to try this cookie recipe. 🙂
Cute photos indeed! These are absolutely adorable, but I like that they aren’t overcomplicated either. Such a perfect Halloween treat!
Those turned out so adorable!! The one eyed monster is cracking me up:-) Your dog is just as bad as ours…I can’t believe she ate all of them. At least she packed on the pounds and not you. I guess that’s the silver lining in the story.
These are so so so cute, Aimee! I LOVE the spider one and the purple eater 🙂 And that’s insane about your dog–how did she not get sick?! Is she made of magic?
Magic dog? I love it! Surely someone will want our magic dog…kidding. (kinda)
Oh nooooo!! I can’t believe your dog polished off all those cookies…that’s some marathon eating right there!
These are just too cute!!! And, before you said that your dog was fine, I thought, Oh my gosh, that poor dog must have been really sick!
omigosh these are ADORABLE! So fun and festive… I love that pumpkin one with the candy corn on top lol! THANK GOODNESS your doggie didn’t get sick!! that is incredible. my sisters dog once ate (and UNWRAPPED) 14 chocolate cupcakes and she was fine. UNWRAPPED them. So bizarre!