Irresistible Peanut Butter Jack o’ Lanterns
It’s fun to make decorated cookies for every holiday and I especially love to decorate them for Halloween. Melted chocolate is perfect for drawing faces on peanut butter cookies shaped like pumpkins. Whether you decorate these little Jack o’Lanterns with faces that are sweet or scary, they’ll disappear like magic.
Follow these tips for great cookies every time, no matter the season:
Use heavy baking sheets that distribute heat evenly, creating uniformly baked cookies.
When a recipe calls for greased baking sheets, a light spray of Crisco® No-Stick Cooking Spray is ideal. Even nonstick baking sheets benefit from a light spray.
To keep cookies from spreading, chill the dough before baking.
Cookies become overdone quickly and will continue to cook for several minutes after being removed from the oven. Avoid baking them until they’re fully brown. Look for golden brown edges instead.
Leave cookies on the baking sheet for 2 to 3 minutes after they’re out of the oven, and then remove them to a cooling rack. Lifting them any earlier leads to tears and breaks. Leaving them on longer can cause them to stick.
Be sure to give the cookies plenty of time to cool, so your icing will perform best.
Use a small icing spatula to spread on an even layer of icing. Decorations such as colored sugars or candies should be applied while the icing is wet so it can act as a glue. If icing is to form the base for piped-on decoration, cookies should be allowed to dry completely before a second layer of decoration is added.
Place a few tablespoons of icing in one corner of a heavy-duty plastic bag. Snip off the corner to create an instant pastry bag.
Dip one side of a dark cookie, such as chocolate, into melted white chocolate for a two-tone look.
Directions
HEAT oven to 375ºF. Combine brown sugar, peanut butter, shortening, milk and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat at medium speed until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended.
COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Add to shortening mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended. Cover and refrigerate about 30 minutes.
DIVIDE dough into thirds. Roll out evenly to 1/4-inch thickness. Using a floured 2 1/2 to 3-inch pumpkin-shaped cookie cutter, cut dough into desired shape and place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Repeat with remaining dough.
To make without pumpkin cookie cutter: PINCH off walnut size pieces of dough. Shape into balls. Place 3-inches apart on ungreased baking sheet. Flatten each ball with bottom of glass to approximately 3/8-inch thickness. Form into pumpkin shape, making indentation on top of round. Pinch off very small piece of dough and roll to form small stem. Attach to top of cookie. With a small sharp knife, score dough with vertical lines to resemble a pumpkin.
BAKE 7 to 8 minutes or until cookies are set and just beginning to brown. Cool on baking sheet 2 minutes. Remove cookies to cooling rack to cool completely.
REMOVE about 1/4 cup vanilla frosting from container and set aside. Add several drops each of red and yellow food coloring to remaining frosting. Blend thoroughly to a bright orange color. Add one drop green food coloring to reserved 1/4 cup vanilla frosting; blend well.
FROST all but the upper "stem" area of cooled cookies with orange frosting. Frost the upper "stem" area with green frosting.
PLACE chocolate chips and shortening in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on MEDIUM (50% power) 1 minute. Stir. If necessary, microwave an additional 30 seconds at a time until mixture is smooth when stirred. Transfer chocolate mixture to a resealable food storage bag. Cut small tip off corner of bag. Pipe lines and faces over frosted cookies to resemble jack o'lanterns.
What's Needed:
COOKIES
1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup Jif® Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Crisco® Butter Shortening
Or 1/2 stick Crisco® Butter Flavor All-Vegetable Shortening Sticks
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
FROSTING
1 (16 oz.) container Pillsbury® Vanilla Frosting
Red, yellow, and green food coloring
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 teaspoons Crisco® Butter Shortening
Recipe brought
to you by Amy Tobin
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