Halloween Sugar Cookies

     Yesterday I decided to make the women I visit from church a Halloween treat. I have struggled over the past few years to find a sugar cookie recipe that I just love. I tend to like my sugar cookies soft and chewy rather than thin and crisp. A lot of sugar cookie recipes I have found (especially ones for cut-out cookies) are meant to be crisp. I have also found that several sugar cookie recipes I have tried just don't have a lot of flavor. I have finally found one that tastes great and creates deliciously soft and chewy sugar cookies! For instructions and ideas about how to use this sugar cookie recipe for cute Halloween cut-out cookies, try here. My only complaint with this recipe is that the dough was quite sticky when I tried to roll it out and shape the cookies. I had to use a lot more flour than I expected and was worried all the extra flour would dry the cookies out. Well, once I added the necessary amount of flour to roll out and shape the cookies, it was fine. The cookies baked up flavorful and moist! I think this is my go-to sugar cookie recipe from now on. FINALLY! I also decided to try a new method of cookie decorating: decorating with royal icing and the "flooding" technique. I was a little intimidated but it actually wasn't too bad. It takes some time to use the toothpick and "flood" the cookies with the thinned out icing, but it was surprisingly relaxing and fun. I just love this technique because it makes such a smooth and clean decoration for cookies, making them look a lot more professional than if you just slathered on some regular icing. The royal icing also hardens up nicely. This was my first attempt at decorating cookies this way, so I had to cut myself some slack. One thing I learned is that you CANNOT pick up a cookie that you just flooded with royal icing until it is COMPLETELY dry (an hour or two should do it). I made this mistake and ended up crinkling the icing because it wasn't set all the way yet (as you can see with my pumpkin cookie in the picture above). On the whole though, this was a new baking experience and it was fun and not as daunting as I imagined. I will definitely be trying this again for Christmas cookies! Santa will be pleased.