These easy Ghost Cookies make a festive and fun Halloween treat. We use a sugar cookie mix to make cookie cups and fill them with frosting; decorate with miniature chocolate chips for the eyes.
Ghost Cookies
These adorable Ghost Cookies are perfect if you’ve waited until the last minute to make something for a Halloween event. They only need six ingredients and take very little hands-on time.
While you can make the cookies and frosting from scratch, I’m showing how to pull these off in under 30 minutes using a sugar cookie mix and store-bought frosting. Let’s start with the cookies!
Ingredients
- Sugar Cookie Mix: Including the ingredients the cookie mix calls for. Forms the base and structure of the cookie cups.
- Whipped Cream Cheese or Vanilla Frosting: Used as a creamy filling for the cookie cups, adding sweetness.
- Mini Chocolate Chips or Black Pearl Sprinkles: Serve as decorative eyes, adding a chocolate flavor to your ghost cookies.
Quick Tip
If you don’t have your own decorating tips, look for cans of prepared frosting that come with disposable tips.
How To Make Ghost Cookies
- Bake: Prepare sugar cookies using your favorite recipe or pre-made dough. Press the dough into mini muffin tins to create small, cup-like shapes.
- Cool: When done baking, remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool completely. This step helps the frosting stick well.
- Frost: Using a piping bag with a small tip, carefully pipe white frosting into the center of each cookie cup. The frosting should be smooth and also evenly spread.
- Decorate: Then add mini chocolate chips for eyes and a mouth.
- Set: Let the frosted ghost cookies sit until the frosting is firm to the touch. This ensures they hold their shape and also the decorations stay in place.
More Halloween Treats
Ghost Cookies
Ghost Cookies are a fun and festive Halloween treat! Made with sugar cookie cups, frosting, and mini chocolate chip “eyes,” they’re spooky and simple to make!
Equipment
- Piping bag with an open star piping tip (such as a 1M Wilton Swirl Tip)
Ingredients
- 1 (17.5-ounce) package sugar cookie mix plus ingredients called for, I used Betty Crocker; or 1 package refrigerated sugar cookie dough (for a true 3-ingredient treat)
- 1 (12-ounce) container cream cheese frosting or vanilla frosting or homemade frosting
- Mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a mini muffin pan. Prepare the sugar cookie dough according to package directions for drop cookies. Roll dough balls that will fill the mini muffin pan 1/2 full (I use a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon filled most of the way full to measure out the dough, then roll it into a ball and put the ball in the muffin pan cavity). Press into the dough with a finger to slightly indent the center.
- Bake for 7–10 minutes or until the tops are very lightly browned and no longer glossy at the edges. (The time will vary based on how much dough is in the muffin pan, so watch carefully). You don’t want the cookies overbaked at all or they yield hard/unpleasant cookies. Remove from oven and immediately press down the centers with the back of a 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon.
- Let cool a few minutes, then begin gently coaxing them out (see note 1). Use a table knife to trace around the edges and a fork to gently ease out the cookie cup. Or pinch the edges and slowly twist the cookie up and out. Once they are out, you can further press down the center if desired. Let cookies cool the rest of the way on a cooling rack.
- Fit a piping bag with an open star piping tip (such as a 1M Wilton Swirl Tip). Add frosting to the bag and pipe into the (completely cooled) cookie cups to form a swirl barely coming up out of the cookie.
- Place 2 mini chocolate chips into the frosting to create eyes. Place the chocolate chips so the flat round side is facing out.
Video
Recipe Notes
Note 1: Don’t let the cookie cups cool in the muffin tin or they’ll be nearly impossible to pull out. Let them cool for a few minutes, then pull them out. Work the edges with a butter knife and slowly coax the cookies out with a small spoon or fork if needed. Or use your fingers to pinch around the edges and spin the cookie up and out.
Nutrition Note: Calories below are with the whipped cream filling. There are 125 calories if using frosting as the filling.
Storage: Best enjoyed the same day they are made. After that, the cookies and frosting harden.
Nutrition
Serving: 40cookie cups | Calories: 86kcal | Carbohydrates: 16g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 4mg | Sodium: 55mg | Potassium: 8mg | Sugar: 11g | Vitamin A: 11IU | Calcium: 4mg | Iron: 1mg
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
