The Great Halloween Cookie Disaster of 2021

Halloween of 2021 has come and gone. That's not very profound in and of itself unless you're talking about making cookies to give out as treats on Halloween night...and that's just what I did this year.

I don't observe Halloween as much as I used to. As I age I find it's not as needed in the same realm as it used to be in my own life, nor as fun as it used to be. I still decorate my apartment, but on a much scaled back 'dragging out all the stuff' I have to do it with. I don't have kids in my home anymore to get ready for it. It's just me...and the need for a big to-do for Halloween just isn't necessary any longer. The neighborhood I live in is big on it though. Lots of pretty spectacularly decorated houses starting way back in early September. It's a Trick or Treaters paradise on Halloween night where the candy haul is concerned...and this year especially so, trying to make up for the lack of it last year. A pandemic will do that...put a screeching halt to things, and that included Halloween 2020. But the apartment complex I live in is like a virus itself and NO ONE comes here to trick or treat. Ever. 

This was my fifth Halloween here. The first year I bought candy to hand out. Lots of it - because of the apartment complex where I'd lived previously just a few blocks away. The kids at my door in the previous place on Halloween night were abundant to the point I'd run out of candy and have to turn the lights off. I'd buy a lot more candy the next year and still run out. I pretty much expected the same thing here. After all, there were lots of kids that lived here and why would that be any different, right? Wrong. Seems the matter of "just a few blocks" makes a huge difference in trick or treaters mapping out their night to get to where "the good stuff" is. 

My first year here, as I have done every year, I decorated the doors. Put strings of orange lights in the windows. Shopped for candy to cover 6-ish p.m. to 9 p.m. I lit the holiday candles, poured myself a glass of wine, put in the dvd of It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and sat at the dining table to watch both the front and back doors because I didn't know which one they'd come to...and waited. And waited. And waited some more. No one ever showed up. My sister brought her girls over. I was expecting them and had made up some special treats for them. That's it for the whole night. I was confused, a little sad....and wondering what the heck I was gonna do with all the candy I was suddenly stuck with. I sure wasn't gonna eat it. It wasn't necessarily "the good stuff". You know how that is. 

The next year, thinking the previous year was just a fluke, I bought candy again to hand out, but not nearly as much, albeit a little better selection just in case. Same thing. Sister came with her kids. That was it. This particular year I'd observed that the resident kids did NOT trick or treat right here where they lived. Their families decorated their spaces like crazy, but didn't stick around to see which of their immediate neighbors had the best goodies. They took off  to where they knew the getting was good and never looked back. So, the next year I didn't buy candy to hand out...and haven't since. That leads me to the actual subject of today's post. Cookies.

As I said previously, I made treats a little more special for my sister's kids. I do every year. I usually buy some fun and different candies and include something else like a dvd I figure they'll like, or some other trinket they might enjoy. I package it all in a cute little Halloween themed bucket or bag and trim it with Jack O Lantern print ribbon for each one. You get the picture. This year I opted to do something different other than buy candy and do the same 'ol, same 'ol. 

I was in the grocery store the day before and saw these little tubs of cute orange Jack O Lantern short bread cookies. I had this brilliant idea to get a couple of those, some kind of yummy frosting and the stuff to decorate them with. How hard would that be? After all, the cookies were already made. I didn't have to make a big mess with baking. Just decorate and go. Simple! NOT.

 The before - Cute little pre-made Jack O Lantern cookies.

My first mistake was waiting until the day before Halloween to put it all together...or to even come up with the idea, but on a budget like mine I'm stuck with doing just that more times than not. But back to the shopping. I knew I wanted a cream cheese frosting to frost them with. I found plenty of that in stock. That's #1 checked off my list. I had some green sugar at home to do stems and leaves, so no need for a green frosting tube. Check. Next was tubes of black and orange decorating frosting to make Jack O Lantern faces. Two stores and no such thing to be found. That's #2 and #3 not checked off my list. I went back to the first store where I got the cookies and the frosting and had to settle for a tube of orange glitter gel. It was pretty but because it was gel, I knew it wasn't gonna go the way I wanted it. Previous unsuccessful experience with it told me that. But I didn't have money or time to hunt for and buy all the stuff needed to make my own from scratch. So, the sparkly orange gel in a tube it was.

You may ask why I would go to all that trouble when the cookies already had faces built into them. The cookies were cute, but lacking in personality. They needed a little dressing up. I was making my nieces special Halloween treats and why shouldn't they be in 3-D and glorious technicolor???? I would have been excited about thickly frosted, extra sweet, happy faced Jack O Lantern cookies if I were the kid on the receiving end of them. So, going into it I didn't think it was any trouble at all. The shortages on the list for my project not withstanding, I happily carted my goods home and looked forward to diving into the colorful, frosted fun.

The next morning I sat down at the table with a cookie sheet, frosting, gel, green sugar, all the tools needed to smear, spread, sprinkle, draw and define, and set out to make my nieces Halloween treats. I opted to make a dozen...four for each girl. By the time they were finished they'd be pretty thick and rich and I figured four each was enough. I soon regretted just one. Putting the actual frosting on each cookie wasn't bad. No real issues except for trying to keep the edges even and round and not get it all over my hands in the process. Next came the green sugar for the stems and a few little squiggly leaves on top. That's where the hurdles began. The sugar just wasn't the thing for that. Can't change it at this point, but I digress. I trudged on to the next step. Time for gel. I outlined each frosted face and drew the lines to create the sections of the pumpkin. I was pretty happy with the gel progress so far. Time for the face. Herein lies the real disaster.

I worked ever so carefully drawing triangle shaped eyes, and then on to the gap-toothed grin. Oh brother! (insert face plant here). There was no such thing as any definition and a reasonable facsimile of that gap-toothed grin. All it did was run together...and run together some more. The more I worked at it, the worse it got. About four cookies into it I was ready to give it all to the dogs. When I finally reached that twelfth cookie, I was sooooooooo  happy I never found anything in black to add to it. I sat back and looked at the cookie sheet full of my little pumpkin disasters and thought to myself, if those ain't some scary ass looking Jack O Lanterns, I don't know what are! I didn't have the resources or the time to change my mind and run out to shop for something else. Into the fridge they went to set the whole frosting/gel thing so I could bag them up later. That evening about an hour before I figured my visitors would be arriving, I attempted to put them in plastic sandwich bags. Another insert face plant here. Sticky, smear, smush, struggle...and sticky, smush, struggle some more. I did not take a picture of that mess.

The after - scary, SCARY Jack O Lantern cookies 😖

My sister and the kids came by that evening. I gave them their cookies with my head held in shame and tried to explain my plight. They were very understanding. My sister, who I consider a master baker and very good at what she does understands the struggle. It takes the baking and decorating mistakes and disasters over time to get to master status. I just hope they thought the cookies tasted much better than they looked. After all, eating your Halloween goodies is the ultimate goal, right????? If you can get past the smeared, smushed frowns, they did taste pretty good...at least that's what Charlie and Mr. Big thought. They're my two dogs and give me their approvals or disapprovals about everything around here. I had a couple myself. The taste far exceeded the look.

On a happier note, this is my eleven year old niece in her costume this year. She's getting SO TALL!!!

Do It Yourself  frosted cookies for Halloween. Never again.