Harvest Recipes on k99online.com

Family fun is plentiful in the Miami Valley this time of year . Hayrides, corn mazes, fall festivals and much more. If you have a family fun event or venue that you want us to share with everyone, email the details and we will happily add it to our list of fun things to do.

Halloween Baking Basics
Armed with a few bottles of food coloring (the gel or paste varieties work best), a good cut-out cookie recipe (try Child-Proof Sugar Cookies or Butter Sugar Cookies) some cookie cutters, and a basic frosting recipe (try Royal Icing or Really Good Frosting ) you too will be able to turn your kitchen into a baking cave of horrors.

Cookie shapes
Try bats, cats, witches, ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, pumpkins, leaves, acorns, full moons, broomsticks, cauldrons, martians, spiders, eyeballs, tombstones and any other spooky shape that you can come up with!

Cookie colors
By mixing different food colorings you can create creepy colors like putrid green, horrible orange, blood red, midnight black, and glow yellow. Top your cookies with some of these colors and watch the screams pour in.

Black Widow Spider Cookies
Make a batch of Child Proof Sugar Cookies . Add enough black food coloring gel or paste to the dough to get a nice black color (this will take quite a bit). Roll out the dough to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick and cut into circles, using two different cookie cutters, one smaller and one bigger. Place the cookies on a cookie sheet, attaching the smaller cookie (spider's head) to the larger cookie (spider's body). In the larger circle make a small hourglass-shaped hole and fill it with crushed red hard candy. In the smaller circle make two small holes (for eyes) and fill with yellow or green crushed hard candy. Attach strips of cookie dough to the body for legs.

Mounds of Brains Cookies
Using Butter Cookies or your favorite refrigerator cookie recipe, add some black food color gel or paste until you get a gray color, then push the dough through a colander to make worm-like shapes. Take small handfuls of the wormy dough and gently shape it into a brain-like shape, then bake. For an added touch, drizzle a little green colored icing over the tops of the baked brains.

Witches Fingers

Use a good cookie press recipe like Butter Cookies . Place the dough in a pastry bag or large plastic bag with one corner snipped off. Pipe the dough into finger-sized amounts onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Then use the dull side of a butter knife to make lines suggesting knuckles, and add an almond or candy for the fingernail. Before baking the finger cookies shape them into a slightly bent shape so that they look like grabbing fingers! Chill cookies before baking. Once baked you can add a bit of red icing if you want a bloody finger. A tasty bowl of these makes for a grisly Halloween treat.

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