Pillsbury Halloween Cookies

One of the best parts about Halloween are the various varieties of Halloween themed cookies released throughout the season.  Yeah, it's true, the cookies never actually taste any different, but the designs are enough to make you think they do.  A sugar cookie is great, but one with a pumpkin printed on the front?  Well that just has to be better than the plain, old, boring sugar cookie!  Plus, they always come in amazing boxes and/or wrappers.  That, for me, makes walking down the frozen food aisle, freezing my cinnamon buns off, all worth it!

Pillsbury never disappoints me during the Halloween season.  They always go all out on their designs and I appreciate the effort.  For a Hallow-geek like me, it doesn't go unnoticed and usually leads to me spending more money on cookies than I should.  But how do you turn that down?  A costumed doughboy holding brown and orange chocolate chip cookies!?  I love it.  However, if you notice, the wrapper doesn't actually say anything about Halloween.  Maybe they're supposed to be "Fall" themed, but come on, why the mask, then?  ORANGE chips? Nope. Uh-uh.. Whether you say it or not, this IS for Halloween!

You might remember by cookie sheet from last year.  Disregard it.  It's old, it's ugly, and it looks like it's been through a horror movie.  It is the Freddy Krueger of cookie sheets, but it gets the job done and that's all that matters to me.  Regardless, pretend it doesn't exist and that all you see are the tiny blobs of cookie dough filled with chippy Halloween goodness.

Fresh out of the oven, here are the Pillsbury Halloween Chocolate Chip cookies!  I'll admit, I'm not the best baker.  Usually, my girlfriend is the one that makes these come out so great, but this time it was me.  My 2-year-old cousin was over and I saw the perfect opportunity to create a memory.  I remember when I was growing up, my family always did everything they can to make a simple Wednesday or Thursday as special day.  That's what I wanted to do for somebody else.  He may only be 2, but hey, maybe it will stick with him and he'll also be a geek who writes in a Halloween blog one day!  The tradition lives! ;)

I wish I could share them with you through the computer screen, but unfortunately Apple hasn't gotten around to that technology just yet.  Give it time.  Maybe next year.

Haunted Gingerbread House

When I first decided to start The Holidaze, I went to Michael's Crafts Store to look for Halloween-themed goodies.  I really didn't know what I was going to write about, so I had to scour at first to come up with something.  Well, back in September, my Girlfriend and I saw this Haunted Gingerbread House and knew it would be perfect for The Holidaze.  So, over a month ago, we picked it up and saved it for Halloween night!

There were two variations of the Haunted Gingerbread House.  One was made by Wilton, and the other made by Duff, that guy from Ace of Cakes who's no longer relevant thanks to Cake Boss.  That's just how NJ does it.  But anyway, we went with the Wilton version simply because it looked cooler.  We had made Christmas Gingerbread Houses before, so we knew we could pull it off, but really, I'm just taking credit for somebody else's work.  In all honesty, all I usually do is hold things in place.

Thanks to my impressive stability, this Gingerbread house isn't going anywhere.  So my Girlfriend was able to start icing the roof.  From the picture above, you'd think this was going to be a disaster, but I never lost faith in the Haunted House!

At this point, the hard part was over.  The roof and windows were done, so now we were able to place the front in position and complete the decoration process.  Again, I wasn't much help.  I was too busy looking at the clock as it quickly ticked toward November 1st.

When all was said and done, we had the perfect Halloween Haunted Gingerbread House.  The key is to use a few extra ingredients, like glitter gel pens and icing.  It adds a bit extra to the house and makes yours stand out more than whoever else happens to make and post these on the Internet.  I'm really happy with how this came out and that's a good thing because I've been waiting to post it for well over a month now.  Finally, it is complete and I can rest happy as we enter November. 

Well, not yet, though.. We still have a few more pictures to share.  See, as we were building our masterpiece, we were also baking Sugar Cookies for decorating as well.  Before I end, I just want to share those with you here.

Here's my Pumpkin.  He's very similar to my Pumpkin Spice Krispie Treat face, but I really can't get much more creative when it comes to pumpkins.

I give myself credit with this one, though.  This was cut out to be a casket, but I turned him into the ghostface killer from Scream.  Sure, it looks like he has brown hair, but you get the idea.  It's the face that matters and, if I say so myself, it came out just right.  I'm proud of the Scream cookie.

Here is the complete Halloween Cookie collection.  These 7 cookies bring our Halloween to an end but I like to think we went out with a bang.  Now, it's time for me to Thank all of my Holidaze readers and eat some cookies!

Nestle Tollhouse Halloween Creatures

You might have noticed by now that you simply can't have enough cookies during the Holidays.  Whether it be Halloween, Christmas or Easter, cookies are the perfect late-night treat.  For me personally, this has been a very cookieful Halloween and, believe me, it's far from over.

When deciding between Pillsbury Spooky Cat Cookies and these new Nestle Tollhouse Halloween Creatures Cookies, there was no question as to which one we were going with.  We simply had to try these!  There were two selling points that really caught my eye.  The first?  These 24 sugar cookies are pre-cut!  Now, I have no problem cutting my own cookies, but having it already done for you doesn't hurt, especially when they're in the shapes of pumpkins, ghosts and witches!  The second selling point were the colors.  I love cookies that have colorfully printed images on them and, in that regard, nobody does it better than Nestle Tollhouse!

Take a look at these beauties!  I feel like I've written that exact line a hundred times, but that means we're having a great Halloween season.  These cookies are to be admired.  They're literally works of art and add a lot to the Halloween season.  Sure, you could decorate your own, and that's so fun that I probably will sometime this week, but what if you don't have the time?  What if you want a decorative Halloween cookie without the hassle of doing it yourself?  Well, don't fret my pet, you can have it that way with these Halloween Creatures.  By the way, is a witch really a "creature?"

Disregard my crispy cookie sheet, she's been through a lot over the years.  Focus your attention on the cookie dough about to be baked.  They're now cut out from their borders and ready to go.  What's so cool about the cookies is that you can cut two out at a time.  Like I said, if you're looking for ease and speed, this is the way to go!

Here they are!  All baked and ready to go!  I don't know how you guys like your cookies, but I'm picky.  I like them crunchy, but only around the edges.  I like the middle chewy, but not gooey.  Luckily, these Halloween Creatures came out perfect. 

Let's take a look at my top three..

#3 - The Boo Ghost

He reminds me of something we'd find hanging out with Casper or a ghoul from Disney's The Haunted Mansion.  He looks happy, but not so much that he couldn't scare you.  He knows he can and, if he has to, he will.  But the reason why he's in my top three is because of the brown bubble that says "Booooo."  From afar, it looks like a football.  I can't get it out of my head that it's not a football and have convinced myself that it is.  He is a football playing ghost. 

#2 - The Candy Corn Ghost

This cute little guy comes in second because of his bag of candy.  For whatever reason, I really like his bag of candy and the fact that it's so orange.  It's bright and obvious that he loves candy corn.  He has personality and finds joy in Halloween treats.  Chances are, he's a big Holidaze reader.  Unfortunately, he can't be number one because he wasn't printed properly.  He's not straight enough for me to call my favorite... not that there's anything wrong with that!

#1 - The Batty Witch

Here's my number one woman -- The broom-flying, batty witch!  Not only is she the biggest cookie, she's the most colorful.  She has black, orange, green, purple, and a little bit of blue and red.  She also has a big-eyed bat flying behind her.  That means this cookie features TWO "creatures."  Unless I've answered my own question and proved that witches aren't really creatures at all and, in this cookie, the bat is our only creature.  Hm, something to think about when you don't have thumbs to twiddle

Now you're ready to place your cookies on a plate and pour yourself a glass of milk.  My glass makes up for the 4th of July plate.  Trust me, I'm not in that much of a Holidaze...yet.

When you've finished your Nestle Tollhouse Halloween Creatures Cookies, don't get sad.  I know it's easy to do, but they'll be back again for Christmas, Valentines Day and Easter!

I just found three new Holidaze blog posts for December, February and April!