Jack-O-Lantern Cookies

Besides the ingredients for the sugar cookies (which can be found below), you will also need the following:

Lollipops
Paper Towels
Parchment Paper (to cook the cookies on, it makes them easier to remove from the cookie sheet)
Rolling Pin
Pumpkin Shaped Cookie Cutters (or a clean glass)

First we'll start with a recipe for making sugar cookies. You can use store-bought dough, but it's more fun for the little ones if they get to help with the entire process.

Yummy Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups softened butter
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
red and yellow food dye

In a large bowl, blend together the eggs, sugar and butter until it is smooth. Put 20 drops of yellow and 10 drops of red food dye into the mix. Add flour, baking powder, and salt, mixing thoroughly. Cover and chill the dough for at least an hour (using a metal mixing bowl helps chill it faster and stay cold longer. You can even chill it overnight if you wish.)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out the dough on a floured surface, dough should be 1/2 to 1/4 inches thick. Cut with a pumpkin shaped cookie cutter, or use a clean glass to make circle shaped cookies.

Making the stained glass part of the cookie is actually really easy. Just cut out the shapes for eyes, and mouth and remove those extra bits of dough. Now you have 3 holes in each cookie.

I use plain lollipops, but you can use any type of candy you think would taste good in the cookie. Pop the candy off the sticks, and put it between 2 pieces of clean paper or paper towels. Using a rolling pin, gently crush the candy into small pieces. Then sprinkle the candy bits into the holes of your cookies. (This should be done on the cookie sheet as you can't move the cookies with the bits inside!)

When all the cookies have candy bits, put the cookie sheet into the oven for 8 minutes, or until the candy is melted and the cookies look done.

Let the cookies cool, and you can eat them as is.

If you wish, you can ice the cookies after they have cooled, though you don't really need to. You can also add food coloring to the icing to make the cookies really stand out.

Icing:

1 Cup Confectioners Sugar
1 Tablespoon Light Corn Syrup
2 Tablespoons Water
10 drops food coloring

Stir all ingredients together until smooth. Paint the icing onto the cookie with a knife (being careful not to cover the candy pieces!), or a pastry brush. You must stir the icing before every use or it may look mottled instead of smooth when it has dried.

Picture is of finished cookie without the icing.