Witch's Hat Cookies

Halloween: it conjures up glowing jack-o-lanterns, a rustle of leaves on the ground, spooky bats and ghosts and skeletons hanging from doors or trees... and going door-to-door for sweets, all the while dressed up in some fantastic costume. Growing up, trick-or-treating has to be the best part of Halloween. Now that I'm at the age where it's more appropriate to hand out candy from my front door rather than to go out collecting it, I love Halloween no less... maybe even more! Halloween (or Halloweek) still gives me an excuse to dress up in costume, and as Jo and I proved earlier, carving pumpkins is a lot of fun and roasted pumpkin seeds are delicious, AND we get to bake Halloween-themed goodies! Seriously, what's not to love?

Enter the Witch's Hat Cookies. These are perfect for your Halloween parties this weekend - they look adorable and they taste great (the cookie dough is almost brownie-like, and who doesn't love Hershey's kisses?) So whether or not you make it out trick or treating on October 31st, here is a treat for you...

I halved the following recipe and it made 35 cookies... so it's up to you how many you want to make, but here is the recipe (from Canadian Living) in full:

THE RECIPE: 

4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Hershey's Kisses, unwrapped

1. In double boiler, heatproof bowl, or smaller saucepan over saucepan of hot (not boiling) water, melt chocolate, stirring occasionally.
2. Meanwhile beat together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Once chocolate is melted, beat it in too.
3. In separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture in 2 additions to make smooth dough.
4. Roll dough into small ball and press flat onto parchment paper lined baking tray (size of cookie should be about 1 inch). Place cookies about 1 inch apart from each other.
5. Bake in 350 degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes, until edges are crisp (which is not easy to see on these chocolate cookies, but they will definitely be done in 10 minutes or less depending on your oven; I baked mine for 8).
6. Transfer to racks and press Hershey's Kisses into centre of each cookie. Let cool.

Icing:
Although the icing step of these cookies is not 100% necessary if you are in a rush, I think it adds a nice touch! I whipped up a quick icing with icing sugar, butter, vanilla and milk - and then played around with the food colour for a bit to get the light shade of orange I ended up with.
These amounts are approximate for the icing and can be modified depending on the thickness (you don't want your icing to be too thin or it will run):

1 cup icing sugar
3 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp milk
A few drops of pure vanilla extract
Food colour (yellow and red)

1. Blend icing sugar and butter together until smooth.
2. Blend milk and vanilla into icing sugar mixture.
3. Food colour: for orange, I started with yellow, and blended it in a few drops at a time, until I had a fairly bright shade of yellow. Then I added ONE drop of red, and suddenly my icing had turned a pinkish orange! So I added more yellow, until I was at a very pale orange - but since I wanted a bright orange, I added another drop of red. Once again, I had a pinkish icing - so I added some more yellow, and then decided I'd rather not risk pink icing again, so the colour in the pictures is what I finished with. If you're better at mixing food colours, feel free to give me some tips on how to make a brighter orange!
4. Transfer icing into a small ziplock bag and remove all access air from bag before sealing it. Push the icing into one of the bottom corners of the bag, and then cut a tiny, tiny hole.
5. Ice away your Witch's Hats! I chose to just ice around the Hershey's Kiss, although you could do a second rim around the brim too!

Melting chocolate... mmm

Press the Hershey's Kisses into the cookies when you take them out of the oven (in the past I've done this step backwards, and if you put them on the cookies before they go in the oven, they will melt and look more like Witch Hat Blobs than Witch Hat Cookies!) 

The icing brings these Witch's Hat Cookies to life!

Happy Trick or Treating!

Caroline and Jo