Zoe Denenberg; Prop Styling: Rachel Mulcahy
Halloween is quite literally fueled by candy. Trick-or-treaters spend the night trekking from door-to-door, collecting a variety of candies that are sure to litter your pantry for months on end. For a holiday that so centrally focuses on candy, it could be difficult to determine one signature holiday treat. But when it comes to October 31, it’s plain and simple—candy corn is the most iconic candy of Halloween.
The elongated pyramidical stripes of yellow, orange, and white sugar are undeniably a symbol of the spooky season (and yes, you can even make your own candies at home). This Halloween treat may be iconic, but most of us can only enjoy a few pieces before the artificial sugar rush becomes overwhelming. Luckily, we have a solution: Candy Corn Sugar Cookies. These decorated cookies channel the festive spirit of candy corn without packing such an intense sugar punch. You can make these cookies as big or as small as you’d like; miniature candy corn cookies look adorable presented in a bowl like the real candies, while slightly larger cookies make a perfect treat for adults and kids alike. If you want to bring even more festive flair to the cookies, add eyes and a smile to transform each candy corn into a cute character. While these cookies certainly stand on their own, we recommend pairing our Candy Corn Sugar Cookies with a selection of other decorated treats—jack-o’ lanterns or friendly ghosts, anybody?—for the ultimate Halloween dessert spread.
How to Make It
Step 1
Make Easy Sugar Cookies, cut into 3-inch triangles. Make Royal Icing.
Step 2
Separate royal icing into 3 small bowls. Leave one bowl of icing white; use yellow food coloring to dye icing in second bowl yellow; use orange food coloring to dye icing in third bowl orange (you can also mix red and yellow food colors to the desired shade of orange). Load half of the icing from each bowl into its own piping bag; fit each piping bag with small round tip (#2 or 3). Mix additional tablespoons of water into each remaining half-bowl of icing gradually, until it reaches a slightly loose flooding consistency. Load flooding-consistency white, yellow, and orange icings into three separate piping bags (no need to fit the bags with a metal tip; simply snip the tip of the piping bag to create a small opening, approx. 1/8 inch).
Step 3
Use piping-consistency yellow icing to outline the bottom stripe of the candy corn. Use piping-consistency orange icing to outline the middle stripe of the candy corn (the middle section should be slightly thicker than other stripes). Use piping-consistency white icing to outline the top stripe of the candy corn. Let set for 2-3 minutes.
Step 4
Use flooding-consistency yellow icing to flood the bottom stripe of the candy corn. Use flooding-consistency white icing to flood the top stripe of the candy corn. Let dry for 1-2 hours (wait to flood the orange section to avoid the colors bleeding into each other). Once other sections have dried, use flooding-consistency orange icing to flood the middle stripe of the candy corn. Let dry for 1-2 hours.
Chef's Notes
If desired, mix a fourth bowl of piping-consistency black icing and use a size 1 tip to pipe a face onto the candy corn.
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