Halloween Skull Linzer Cookies
Easy Homemade Halloween Cookies - Tender, buttery Linzer cookies cut into skull shapes, baked, filled with raspberry jam and then finished off with an easy M&M flower! Cute halloween skull Linzer cookies are easy and fun to make this Halloween season.
Servings 5 cookies
Ingredients
Linzer Cookies
- 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature (½ cup)
- ¼ cup + 1 tablespoon confectioners sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 + ¼ cup all purpose flour
- 2 pinches salt
Additional ingredients
Instructions
Make Linzer cookies
- Add butter, confectioners sugar and vanilla extract into a medium bowl. Beat with a hand held electric beater, until creamy ( 1 to 2 minutes). Refer notes to make cookie dough without an electric beater.Add all purpose flour and salt, continue beating on the lowest setting, until it begins to clump together (refer pictures and video).
- Gather the dough together and form a flat disc. Roll between two sheets of parchment paper to ¼ to ⅛ inch thickness ( Too thick - will make lesser number of cookies and too thin - will make very thin cookies that might break easily).
- Place cookie dough (along with parchment) on a baking sheet and refrigerate overnight.
About two hours before making cookies,
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Remove cookie dough from refrigerator and cut skull shapes using skull cookie cutter and carefully transfer to the prepared baking sheet leaving at least ¾-inch distance in between.
- Make eyes and mouth only for half the cookies - Using the back end of the piping tip or any round cutter, make two holes for eyes. -Using the fluted round cookie cutter, press and cut only one side of the cookie cutter on the lower portion of face without going through the edges. A bit tricky, but you will get the hang of it (refer video).
- Refrigerate again for at least 2 hours or up to a day.
Bake cookies
- Pre heat oven to 350° F.Bake cookies for 23 to 26 minutes or until golden in color. Place baking pan on a wire rack to cool completely. (cookies can be made until this step and stored at room temperature for up to 4 days or frozen up to a month)
Make M&M flowers
- Using a sharp knife, break M&Ms in half. Line a small baking sheet with parchment paper ( this helps to easily transfer the set M&M flowers onto the cookies)Place 3 tablespoons chocolate chips in a microwavable bowl and microwave for about one minute, until completely melted (stirring once after 30 seconds). Transfer melted chocolate into a small zip lock bag, seal and make a small cut at the corner to squeeze out the chocolate. Make a small, thick circle on the parchment and place 6 M&M halves to make a flower (refer pictures and video). You can move it around carefully to make them aligned and pretty (I used same colored M&Ms for each flower). Repeat to make more flowers. Place baking sheet in refrigerator to set. (M&M flowers can be made up to a day in advance).
Assemble cookies
- Spread a layer of raspberry jam on the surface of the full cookie and place the cut-out cookie on top and gently sandwich them together.Place remaining 2 tablespoons chocolate chips in a microwavable bowl and microwave for about one minute, until completely melted (stirring once after 30 seconds). Transfer melted chocolate into a small zip lock bag, seal and make a small cut at the corner to squeeze out the chocolate.
- Squuze out a small dollop on side of the skull cookie, above the eye and place a M&M flower on top and press gently to adhere. Let cookie sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes for chocolate to set.
- The filled cookies will soften when stored. If you want the cookies to stay crisp, assemble the day of serving.
Notes
The crisp cookies will soften after being filled with jam. So, assemble cookies on the same day or one day ahead of serving.
Confectioners sugar contains cornstarch which makes a super tender cookie.
If you do not have an electric mixer, the cookie dough can done easily with a wooden spoon – Mix room temperature butter, confectioners sugar and vanilla extract with a wooden spoon for 4-5 minutes, until it looks creamy and smooth. Add flour and salt and continue mixing, to form a dough.
Room temperature butter is very important for a any good cookie recipe. Let butter stand at room temperature for several hours before making cookie dough.
Chill and CHILL – In order ensure the cookies maintains its shape and does not spread, it is very important to have a firm, well chilled dough. We chill the dough in two stages. First is right after making the dough, roll and chill overnight until completely firm. Then again, the dough is chilled after cutting the skull shapes. This gives an extra assurance that the dough is firm, if it had any chance to soften while the cutting process.
Parchment paper for rolling – Since it is a buttery shortbread cookie dough, it will stick if rolled on a floured counter. Rolling between two sheets of parchment ensures that the dough is rolled neat, without any addition of flour used for rolling.
Do not own a fluted round cookie cutter? Use an plain round cookie cutter.
Raspberry jam – For a bloody red color.
Want more cookies? The recipe can be easily doubled or tripled. However, it is easier to handle rolling each batch of cookie dough separately.