With just one 9x13" pan, you can whip up four adorable Halloween bars - no cookie cutters, piping tips, or decorating skills required!
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Why I Love These Halloween Cookie Bars
✔️ No cookie cutters or rolling dough required!
✔️ No piping tips needed: We're just using tipless piping bags!
✔️ No fancy decorated skills needed! You can make these with kids and let them decorate and press on the eyes!
What You Need
- 9x13 pan
- Sugar Cookie Bars (recipe below)
- Frosting (recipe below)
- Black and green food coloring: I use the Wilton Color Right set since it comes with black and then I mix a lime green using yellow and a tiny amount of blue.
- Candy eyeballs
How to Make:
These Halloween Sugar Cookie Bars look complicated but they're not! I'll break down, step-by-step, how to cut and decorate them below.
Step 1: Prepare Frosting
Remove ¼ white frosting from the bowl and place in a bowl or piping bag. Divide the remaining frosting among 2 bowls and color one bowl black and one bowl lime green.
Step 2: Cut Bars
- Step 1: Cut the bars in half horizontally.
- Step 2: Cut according to red lines above.
- Step 3: Cut according to red lines above.
- Step 4: You'll now have all the cuts needed to decorate!
Step 3: Decorate
- Fingers: Pipe a teardrop shape with black. Use a toothpick to create lines, then pipe on little round warts.
- Frankenstein: Pipe on black hair and stitched mouth, then press on candy eyeballs.
- Mummy: Press on candy eyeballs then pipe white frosting in a criss-cross pattern overtop.
- Witch Hats: Pipe a green line, then pipe a skinner rectangle on top for the buckle.
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Halloween Sugar Cookie Bars
Ingredients
Sugar Cookie Bars:
- 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt omit if using salted butter
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
Buttercream Frosting
- ¾ cup unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks) softened
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¾ teaspoon almond extract
- 2-3 tablespoons milk
- Food coloring black and green
Before you begin! If you make this, will you do me a huge favor afterwards and leave a review and rating letting me know how you liked this recipe? This helps my small business thrive so I can continue providing free recipes and high-quality content for you.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉. If butter hasn't been softened you can place in microwave for 10 seconds to *slightly* soften it.
- In a large bowl, cream together softened unsalted butter (1 cup, i.e. 2 sticks) and granulated sugar (1 cup) on medium speed for 20-30 seconds. While mixer is still on medium speed, add in egg (1 large), vanilla extract (2 teaspoons) and almond extract (1 teaspoon).
- Once mixed, add in baking powder (1 ½ teaspoons), salt (½ teaspoon), and *all-purpose flour ½ cup at at time (2 ¼ cups total). Be sure to measure your flour properly using the spoon & level method, as adding too much can result in dry bars. Mix until all flour disappears, typically 20-30 seconds. You do not need to beat/mix this any longer than it takes to mix in the flour. When pinched between your fingers, dough should be similar to a playdoh consistency and not be very sticky. Refer to photo above in post for how dough should look.
- Spray a metal 9×13 pan with cooking spray, then line pan with parchment paper (having the grease underneath the paper will help the paper stay down).
- Drop the dough into 1 tablespoon sized chunks into the prepared pan. Use your hands or a spatula to press down the dough until it covers the pan.Tip: If the dough is sticky, you can place another piece of parchment paper on top and continue pressing down. To get clean edges, you can fold down the sides of the parchment paper and press like shown in the post above.
- Bake bars at 350℉ for 14-16 minutes. The trick to soft sugar cookie bars is to take them out right when you see the TINIEST amount of brown around the edges. The center may look underdone and this is okay; the bars will continue to bake in the hot pan when cooling.
- Allow to cool completely before frosting (you can put the pan in the fridge on a cooling rack to speed this up).
To Make Frosting:
- In a large bowl, beat softened unsalted butter (¾ cup, i.e. 1½ sticks) on medium speed using a hand or stand mixer (with paddle attachment) for 1-2 minutes (until light and creamy).
- Keeping the mixer on medium speed, slowly add in vanilla extract (2 teaspoons), almond extract (¾ teaspoon), and powdered sugar (3 cups). Once incorporated, turn mixer to high speed and beat for 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Add 1 tablespoon of milk and beat for 30 seconds. Add the remaining 1-2 tablespoon of milk if frosting seems too thick to spread.
- Remove ¼ white frosting from the bowl and place in a piping bag. Divide the remaining frosting among 2 bowls and color one bowl black and one bowl lime green.
Cutting & Storage:
- Refer to the tips in the post above on how to cut the different shapes!
- Store in an airtight container and store for 2-3 days.
Last Step! Please leave a review and rating letting me know how you liked this recipe! This helps my small business thrive so I can continue providing free recipes and high-quality content for you.