Candy Corn Cookies
This simple Candy Corn Cookie recipe yields a pillowy-soft sugar cookie full of color and delight, perfect for your fall party!
Servings 40 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter 2 sticks, softened at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 cups flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- Food coloring yellow and orange
Instructions
- Cream the butter in a stand mixer or in a bowl using a hand-held electric mixer until smooth.
- Completely mix in the sugar. Next, add the egg, baking powder, and vanilla. Mix until creamy.
- Lightly whisk the flour and salt in a medium bowl. Slowly mix them into the wet ingredients in the mixer, one cup at a time. It is done once the dough is no longer "sticky" and has a play-dough-like feel. The dough should have pulled away from the sides of the bowl and will be easy to form into a ball.
- Split the dough into three equal parts. Color one part yellow, one part orange, and leave one uncolored. *See notes below for best results.* Layer them into a plastic-wrapped line bread pan on one half of the pan(for a single recipe.) The first layer is yellow, then orange, and lastly white. Chill for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator.
- Once the dough is chilled, it is time to shape it and preheat the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line cookie baking sheets with parchment paper. Then remove the dough from the bread pan and plastic wrap and cut it into 1/4 inch thick slices. On a cutting board, take one slice and, angling the knife, cut it into a triangle. Continue making triangles all the way across the slice. Then, place the candy corn cookies on the prepared baking sheet. Pat in a sprinkle of sugar for an added touch of fun.
- Bake these candy corn sugar cookies for 8-10 minutes. Remove them from the oven and let them sit on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.Store candy corn cookies in an airtight container for up to 7 days with a piece of sliced bread(to keep them super soft.) You can freeze candy corn cookies for up to one month.
Notes
Double this recipe for parties or larger families. The single recipe is perfect for a day or two of cookie-snacking heaven, but other than that, you'll want more cookies.
Having trouble getting the parchment paper to lie flat? Crumple it up and smooth it out before fitting it onto the cookie baking sheet. No more curled edges!
Making yellow and orange dough: A single batch of cookies and a third of the dough takes roughly 12 drops of yellow for the yellow portion. Then, it will take 10-12 drops of yellow and 3-4 drops of red to color the dough orange. Remember, adding more color is easy, but you can't remove it without making more dough to dilute the color.
When coloring the dough: Split the dough into three equal(ish) portions. In the bowl attached to your stand mixer, color that dough yellow using the stand mixer to blend the color. After the yellow dough is mixed, place the yellow dough in a different bowl. Transfer another uncolored portion of dough into the stand mixer bowl and color that portion orange using the red and yellow food coloring. Coloring the dough this way saves your muscles and doesn't mix colors.
Do you have to chill the sugar cookie dough? Chilling the dough makes it easier to cut and form into candy corn shapes; however, it is not completely necessary. If you forgo chilling the dough, the candy corn cookies will spread out more during baking and potentially lose their shape. Need cookies faster? Try chilling the dough in the freezer for 30 minutes instead of the refrigerator for 2 hours.