Halloween Coffin Cookie Recipe

These Halloween Coffin Cookies are the "sister" cookie to the Ghost Cookies that I baked at the same time because once you make a batch of royal icing in black and white then you may as well bake two types of cookies if you have the cutters. These have cocoa added to them to make them a chocolate sugar cookie.

I came across a bounty of cookie cutters at a bargain price on ebay US (naturally, as America is the land of the cookie) so I bought 30 of them and am so glad that I did. I even got darling vintage cutters and really intricate ones, not that I will use them right away but it feels comforting having chest full of cutters. Like a child's toy chest if you will.

Coffin Cookies

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes per tray

Makes 25 cookies

• 85g/3ozs butter, softened

• 140g/5ozs white caster superfine sugar

• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 160g/5.6ozs all-purpose flour (or a bit more, I needed about 30g more for this batch)
• Royal icing mixture (white and black)

Step 1 - In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until pale. Beat in egg and vanilla. On low speed mix in the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least 1-2 hours (or overnight).

Step 2 - Preheat oven to 160C/320F. Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Step 3 - Bake for 15 to 18 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Step 4 - To ice with Royal Icing, mix Royal Icing mixture with a little water until a piped line is able to hold without blurring. You will need two consistencies of royal icing, a firmer one to draw an outline on the outside with a piping bag and once this has set, a more runny version (although not watery) to fill it in with a spoon. Pipe an outline around the outside of the cookie and do the outlines for the rest of the cookies, by the time you finish doing the outline for the cookies, the first cookie outlines will have dried. Add a little more water to the Royal Icing and then using a teaspoon dollop a little onto the cookies and with the back of the spoon, move it to the edges. Do not overfill and be careful to keep Royal Icing covered as it dries out easily.