How to Add a Ghost to Any Halloween Cookie

Written by Mike Tamplin • Sep 16, 2013

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How to Add a Ghost to Any Halloween Cookie

Take your cookie decorating to the next level!

Trace cookie designs with ease with the Akaso mini projector.

The leaves outside have yet to change to their autumn colors, but Target has already stocked its shelves with bags of candy corn and trick-or-trick candy bars. How awesome is that?

This acorn cutter makes ghosts appear on cookies. Spooky!

I suspect most people might find this retail trend annoying, the selling of holiday merchandise super early. However, I'm not one of them. I say bring it, the sooner the better. Halloween in Summer? Great. Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Thursday? Fantastic!

Halloween-stocked aisles are enough indication to me the Halloween season is finally here! Halloween cookies are, by far, my favorite type to decorate and I look for any excuse to make them early. So I thank you, Target.

I want to start off the early Halloween season with this handy tutorial on how to add a ghost design to any cookie cutter you have available. All you need is an acorn cutter like the one pictured.

This particular acorn cutter is from a Wilton 9-piece leaf and acorn cookie cutter set. There are three acorn sizes to choose from, but I decided to go with the medium size.

Preparing the Dough

To add a ghost to any Halloween cookie shape just attach an acorn upside-down on top of the cookie, like how it's shown below.

I used a pumpkin cutter for this example, but any shape will work.

The Icing Process

Let me first preface that these cookies use a great technique I learned from the Marlyn of Montreal Confections. Her Princess Realistic Eyes tutorial is one of my favorite techniques. She adds depth and dimension by first painting on the cookie surface, then flooding around it. Click here to check out the tutorial as well as all her other amazing YouTube videos.

Step 1

After the cookie is baked, begin by sketching the ghost with a food coloring marker. I found it easier to first sketch the arms using the acorn border as a guide. Then, sketch the head shape to your liking.

Step 2

With black flood icing and a food-only paintbrush, paint the area where you expect the eyes to be placed. Let the icing dry.

Step 3

With blue-gray piping icing and a #2 tip, outline over the sketched lines and pipe in two eye holes. Then, flood the middle sections with white flood icing. Let this dry completely for at least 8 hours (or overnight).

Step 4

After the icing is fully dry, add facial accents with a food pen. (This rainbow dust food pen is my favorite for detail work on cookies because of its fine tip.)

Step 5

With ghost portion now complete, finish the bottom portion how you creatively see fit. I made the lack-o-lantern design using the method from this jack-o-lantern tutorial by Sweet Sugarbelle.

Other Halloween Ghost Cookie Ideas

Placing a ghost atop a jack-o-lantern is just one example, but the possibilities are endless. Here are a few more Halloween cookie ideas where I thought adding a ghost would be a nice touch.

Below is the finished jack-o-lantern along with a graveyard tombstone.

Fancy plaque cutters are universal and I try to use them whenever I can.

For more Halloween ghost cookie ideas check out these links:

One More Thing...

This set of cookies is my donation to the Go Bo! Foundation bake sale. I'm one of hundreds of bakers worldwide donating cookies to help bring hope to children with life threatening medical conditions.

If you'd like to contribute or would like more information, visit Jill Wettstein's Facebook page: Jill’s Funky Cookie Studio.