Ninjabread Men

Who says you can only enjoy gingerbread at Christmastime? I understand that little gingerbread men and women have become a symbol for the holidays and a favorite Christmas past time for many. So I can understand why people associate this particular cookies with the holidays. But it's such a delicious flavor, it really shouldn't be relegated to just one or two months. The injustice! Now - how to break out the gingerbread sooner than yuletide? NINJAbread! These delicious warriors can be enjoyed anytime! I made them in the Halloween spirit because it felt like ninjas are a great go-to costume but you can enjoy a Ninjabread man anytime. Here's just one example:

When I was little we used to have something called Family Home Evening. Every (or most) Mondays we gather together as a family and talk about Gospel topics, do activities, and have treats together. One particular Monday we were learning about doing kind deeds for others. We read a variation of the Gingerbread Man in which you can never catch him because he is doing good deeds in secret for others. My mom had made a little plush gingerbread man and she had us do nice things for each other and then leave the gingerbread man as a calling card. For example, we would make somebody's bed for them and leave the gingerbread man on their pillow. When they would find it, they would do something nice for somebody in secret, and again, leave the little plush gingerbread man. It was adorable. Well, ninjabread men are even more sneaky then gingerbread men. They can do Service Without A Trace (S.W.A.T.!) You can wrap up these little cookies in cellophane or even ziplocks and have your kids use them as calling cards for good deeds that they do for each other. I see this as a win-win situation. Think of the satisfaction of a made bed AND a cookie simultaneously. The possibilities are endless!

You can purchase the cookie cutters here: here. I just used the recipe on the back of the box for my gingerbread. It was a pretty classic and standard recipe that also holds up well in the freezer. Besides frosting, I only used licorice and sprinkles for the decorations so you might even have everything on hand. Overall they were a fun and festive cookie to make!

Ninjabread Men

1. Cream together the shortening, sugar, spices and salt. Blend in egg and molasses.

2. Sift together flour, baking soda and baking powder. Mix into molasses mixture. Stir until blended and then chill dough until firm and able to roll out.

3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

4. Roll dough to 1/8 or slightly thicker on lightly floured surface. Use ninjabread cookie cutters to cut out. 

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

6. Decorate any way you like - I outlined them with frosting or sparkle gel then filled in the middle leaving the eyes and hands open; then cut small licorice pieces and apply as shown in picture to create uniform. Use sprinkles for eyes.

Note: The Sparkle Gel was extremely easy to use and cute but I did not like the taste near as much as the straight cookie icing. It tasted very Gel-like, if you can imagine.

Recipe Source - Fred and Friends

Spider Web Cookies

To continue with the theme of Halloween, make these. But hurry, time's a ticking! (or time's a witching, whatever you will.) I used a simple sugar cookie for the base. This particular sugar cookie has a cake-like texture. You could use whatever sugar cookie recipe you fancy or even pre-made ones (do it, you know you want to).

Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. almond flavoring

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. cream of tartar

Blend sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and almond flavoring. Mix thoroughly. Slowly add dry ingredients until mixed thoroughly. Chill dough until easy to work with, about 30 minutes to 1 hour. Roll cookies out on floured surface. Cut using round cookie cutter of whatever size you would like. Bake at 350 degrees for 7-8 minutes. Chill on wire rack.

Spider Web Decoration

Vanilla frosting, room temperature

Black frosting gel

Frost cookies with vanilla frosting. Using black frosting gel, draw circles on cookie in increasing sizes, shown above. Using toothpick or knife, start in center circle and pull frosting out in a straight line. Do as many lines as you like to create your own web!

Happy Halloween! Next week...Thanksgiving!!

Pumpkin Bars with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

This Friday night:

1. Make Pumpkin bars.

2. Pour yourself some apple cider.

3. Snuggle up.

4. Watch a Halloween movie.

You're welcome.

Pumpkin Bars

1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

Creme Pumpkins

In a mixing bowl, beat pumpkin, sugar and oil. Add eggs and mix well. Combine dry ingredients and add to pumpkin mixture. Beat until blended. Pour batter into a greased 12 x 17 cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting. Top with creme pumpkins.

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup salted butter, softened

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. cinnamon

2-4 TBL water

Beat together the cream cheese and butter. Add half of the powdered sugar, salt, cinnamon and vanilla. Beat until fully incorporated. Add the remaining powdered sugar and water until desired consistency is reached. Beat on medium high until light and fluffy. Spread onto cooled pumpkin bars.

Frosting recipe from: thesisterscafe.com

Monster Cookies

My son is going to be a monster for Halloween this year - probably the cutest monster Halloween Town has ever seen, but I'm biased. These monster cookies are almost as cute as him! And you can make them with your kids/monsters, which is a great perk. I confess, I did not make them with my kid. He was asleep. But he's six months, so we'll cut him some slack (this time).

I got all of my decoration supplies at Walmart, so if you live in an even remotely populated town in America than you should have no problem finding the following:

Candy Eyeballs - a must!

Fruit snacks - for embellishing and snacking

Gel pen - makes "gluing" on and drawing quite easy

Monster Cookies

1 cup butter, room temperature                                   

1 cup powdered Sugar

1 tsp. vanilla Extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose Flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1-2 Tbsp. lemon rind

Food coloring

Colored sugar or sprinkles

Decorations: candy eye, gel frosting, fruit snacks

1. Using mixing, blend butter, sugar and vanilla thoroughly.

2. Mix in flour, salt and lemon rind.

3. Divide dough into two parts.

4. Add a couple drops of food coloring to each half of dough according to desired color. Mix thoroughly. I found that mixing it in with my hands worked best to make the color even.

5. Work separate halves of dough into a ball and then mold into rolls, about 2-3" across.

6. Roll the roll (sounds like a dance move) into colored sprinkles or sugar. It should look like this:

 7. Cover with saran wrap and chill in the fridge for several hours or overnight.

8. Take dough out of fridge. Allow to soften a bit until easy to slice.

9. Slice in approx. 1/4" slices. 

10. Bake on un-greased baking sheet @ 375 degrees for 7-9 minutes. Do not brown.

11. Let cool on baking rack.

I made purple with colored sprinkles and green with orange sugar, however, there are lots of other monstrous combinations to be found. Use whatever colors you like! 

13. Decorate! 

14. Yum, yum. 

Black Velvet Cookies

'Tis the season! I'm so excited. I don't like gore but I do like a good theme, and Halloween will serve me perfectly the entire month of October. Ghouls and ghosts and spiders, oh my! 

The original recipe was entitled 'Red Velvet Cookies.' Now they are 'Black Velvet Cookies.' You see what I did there. No further explanation required.

They are delicious and chewy and kick off the festivities in a dark way. Boo!(yah).

Black Velvet Cookies

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped                                           

1/2 tsp. baking soda                                                     

1/2 cup butter, softened                                               

2/3 cup packed brown sugar                                        

1/3 cup sugar                                                               

1 egg                                                                           

1 Tbsp. black food coloring *

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup sour cream

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 can (16 oz) cream cheese frosting

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. In a microwave, melt unsweetened chocolate at 20 second intervals. Stir until smooth and set aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in egg, food coloring and vanilla. Add cooled chocolate; beat until blended.
4. Add dry ingredients alternately with sour cream, beating after each addition.
5. Fold in chocolate chips.
6. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto baking sheet. Bake 8-9 minutes or until completely set. Remove to wire racks to cool completely.
7. Spread with frosting.

*A word about black food coloring - it's hard to find. The first time I made these I tried to mix red, yellow and blue per the genius of a google search but it turned out gray and rather gross looking. The second time I used frosting dye which I found at Walmart in a cute tiny jar. It worked much better AND I have a cute tiny jar of frosting dye for future use. Win win. Win.

-Recipe adapted from Christina Petri via Taste of Home