Halloween is so much fun in our new neighborhood! All of the houses are decorated and there is SO much going on. I can’t wait for all of the Halloween parties and festivities. I am always looking for new ways to celebrate the spookiness of Halloween.

So when Nestle contacted me and asked me to make an edible treat using their SKULL Butterfingers I was excited! I thought the skulls would be perfect on Halloween Skeleton Cookies! We love Butterfinger crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery flavor drenched in a smooth milk chocolate coating. And as a mom I love knowing that Butterfingers are free of artificial flavors and colors. I love their flakey texture and chocolatey taste!

The clever part of this cookie recipe is that you probably already have the cookie cutter – a gingerbread man. The gingerbread man cookie cutter also is perfect for making skeleton cookies! And I have the most AMAZING sugar cookie recipe that my friend Amy shared on my blog. It makes sinfully good sugar cookies that are FOOL PROOF. So break out your cookie cutter and give these Butterfinger SKULL Skeleton Cookies & Cookie Cups a try! They are the perfect addition to YOUR Halloween parties OR make up a batch and deliver them to your neighbors. I have an adorable “You’ve Been Spooked” neighbor printable idea on my site too. Print them off and deliver these cookies to someone in your neighborhood!

Here’s how to make Butterfinger Skeleton Cookie Cups:

• Print off my recipe for Grandma’s Famous Sugar Cookies

Other supplies you need to make Butterfinger Skeleton Cookie Cups —

• Black Frosting,
• White Frosting,
• Orange Frosting,
• Butterfinger SKULL Fun Size Candy Cups

Make the dough a couple of hours or the night before you want to make the cookies. It works best if it is chilled. The secret to making cut-out sugar cookies is you OMIT the Baking Soda so your cookies don’t puff up!!

Make the cookies according to the directions.

The outline each of the skeletons with black frosting. You can use frosting that you buy with a tip or make your own and put the frosting in frosting bags and use a small decorating tip.

Then fill in the cookies with frosting that is thinner. I added water to my frosting and then smoothed it on the cookies with a small paint brush.

Once the cookies are frosted. Let the frosting dry for an hour or so.

Then I added the “bones” with white frosting. It’s basically a heart shape at the pelvis and then lines at the arms and legs and dots for the hands and feet.

Then I added the Butterfinger Cups Skulls as the heads. On some I dipped the heads in thinned out white frosting to make them a little spookier. You can do this or you can add them right from the package like they are in the picture above. Either way they are too cute!

If you want to make even easier SKULL cookies, consider making cookie cups! You can use a regular muffin pan to create them or one with fluted edges like I did!

If you want to make these, just add the dough to the muffin tins and press it down firmly. Let it bake at 370-degrees for 10 minutes. Pop them out and fill the centers with frosting and add the skulls!

Now you have the perfect Halloween cookies for parties or to hand out to friends or neighbors! Your family and friends will LOVE these delicious and festive treats!

You can find Butterfinger Cups SKULL bite-sized fun size bags at retailers nationwide. Butterfinger Peanut Butter Cups Skulls Fun-Size come individually wrapped in an 10.8oz laydown bag, with 18 Skulls set – they are the perfect size to give out to trick-or-treaters this year!

Also Nestle has some awesome BIG bags of candy (450 in a bag in some sizes) in case you get TONS of ghosts and goblins at your house like we do! Not only Butterfinger, but also Nestlé Crunch, Baby Ruth, SweeTARTS, Nerds, & Laffy Taffy. It’s so nice to have enough candy on hand for everyone on Halloween night!

Have a SPOOKY Day! 

xoxo

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Nestlé. The opinions and text are all mine.

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I have a little more time to make a treat and show appreciation to neighbors and friends. I am “LUCKY” to know some great people.  Here is a simple way to thank friends who have made a difference in my life and in my kids’ lives.

Today I’m sharing both a delicious sugar cookie recipe (and icing recipe) — and a free St. Patrick’s Day printable for your friends, neighbors and loved ones!

Inspired by this quote,

A Friend is a treasure, more precious than Gold. For love shared is priceless, and never grows old. -Unknown

 I’ve put together this fun gift idea. These sugar cookies are a favorite.  The charger plates were on sale at Michaels for less than $2.

 

And here are the recipes!

Amy Dott’s Favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe

2 cups of butter

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

(Tip: If you do not want the cookie shapes you cut out to puff up and lose their shape, leave the soda out)

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

6 cups of flour or until the dough pulls away from the edges

Crème together.

Sometimes I roll the dough our after spraying pam on the counter top and cut out whatever cookie cutter shape I want to or, if I am in a hurry, I just use a cookie scoop.

Bake at 370 degrees 8-10 minutes

Amy Dott’s Cream Cheese Frosting

1 cup butter

1 package of cream cheese

1 teaspoon vanilla

add powdered sugar until you have the consistency you want.

And here are the printables!

Just right-click this link or the image below and choose “save as” to download the printable PDF (it’s a big one). As always, it’s for personal use only.

 Top o’ the day to ya!

xoxo

The post Free St. Patrick’s Day Printable & Amazing Sugar Cookie Recipe! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

My friend and neighbor graciously shared her grandma’s famous sugar cookie recipe with me … and you! These are sooooo good. I was so thrilled when she agreed to share the recipe with us.

Plus, I’ll show you how I used some of the Home + Made line to package these for easy gift giving!

Here’s the recipe — and some shopping tips for you, too!

Print

Grandma’s Famous Sugar Cookies & Amy Dott’s “Evil” Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

Grandma's Famous Sugar Cookie Ingredients

• 4 sticks of butter 2 cups
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Tip: If you do not want the cookie shapes you cut out to puff up and loose their shape, leave the baking soda out
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 6 cups of flour or until the dough pulls away from the edges
• Dough should not be sticky.

Amy Dott's "Evil" Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients

• 1 stick butter 1/2 cup (room temperature)
• 1 package of cream cheese softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon milk
• powdered sugar added until you have the consistency you want.

Instructions

Grandma's Famous Sugar Cookie Instructions

• Mix ingredients smoothly together.
• Sometimes I roll the dough out after spraying Pam on the counter top and cut out whatever cookie cutter shape I want to or if I am in a hurry, I just use a cookie scoop.
• Bake at 370 degrees 8-10 minutes
• (Note: I try not to make these very often because when I make them, I eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
• Also, if I am delivering them to friends or neighbors, I will freeze them and then package and deliver them. This helps keep the frosting beautiful until the recipient receives them.)

Amy Dott's "Evil" Cream Cheese Frosting Instructions

• Just mix -- adding powdered sugar as noted above -- and frost!
• I mix the frosting in my mixer with a wire whip attachment on high for several minutes. It makes a lighter fluffier consistency. Also, you want to make sure you have no clumps in the frosting if you are using a piping bag and tip.

We used some of the Home + Made line to package these as gifts!

We used the gold stickers

and the gold chipboard ABC thickers!

And we used the gold glitter polka dot kraft paper bags!

And here are a few more things you might want to consider to make baking and gift-giving easier and prettier!

I LOVE these edible accent stars!

Here’s some cool gold star Washi tape:

… and some fun gold dot Washi tape:

And, of course, gold-striped straws

For frosting, I also love disposable pastry bags. They make cleanup easier.

My favorite frosting tips are #21 or #32.

 Happy decorating!

What are your favorite ways to make sugar cookies!

xoxo

Note: The Amazon links above include a special “affiliate” code for TT&J. This means that when you shop from these links at Amazon, TT&J receives a small percentage of what you buy — it doesn’t cost you more. The proceeds go towards more projects and recipes! See my disclosures for more.

The post Grandma’s Famous Sugar Cookies! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.