Halloween cookies

Halloween is coming and I thought it would be the perfect time to try a new recipe! I had never decorated cookies with royal icing before so the result is not the best ever but next time I will do it better! This recipe is easy but quite long... so you will need to be patient, the best part is the last one, at least I had a great time decorating the cookies! I've done ghosts, mummies and spider webs, but you can do any shape you want to (pumpkins, cats...)!

Ingredients
Cookies
160gr Butter
77gr Icing sugar
200gr flour and some more
1 small egg
3 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
3 teaspoon of crushed almonds
cookie cutters

Royal icing
2 egg whites
500gr Icing sugar
1 Teaspoon of lemon juice
1 Teaspoon of food glycerin (optional)

Directions
Cookies
1. Put the butter in the microwave until looks like cream. Mix it with the sugar.
2. Add the egg, vanilla sugar and crushed almonds. Crushed almonds are optional...but will give a great flavor. If you want you can use more vanilla sugar and crushed almonds (I did) but 3 teaspoons should be enough.
3. Gradually add the 200gr  flour, knead for a couple of minutes and put the dough in the refrigerator for two hours.
4. After two hours the dough should be quite hard. Knead a little more and expand it on a floured surface using a pastry roll. This dough is very sticky so use al the flour you need for your hands, surface and pastry  roll.
5. Cut the shapes.
6. Bake 190ºC about 10-15 min.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Royal icing
1. Beat the egg whites mixed with the teaspoon of lemon juece to soft peaks. Add the icing sugar and mix.
2. When you have a soft mix add the glycerin. Glycerin will make the icing brighter and will take longer to harden. I didnt' use it because I couldn't find both the coloring and the glycerin.
3. Separate the icing into as many containers as different colors you want. Add the coloring (some drops) and mix. Put the different icings into different pastry bags.
4. Using different nozzels decorate the cookies. For example for the ghosts first paint all the cookie with the white icing and when it's still liquid paint the eyes and mouth. You can help yourself with toothpicks for the small details.
IMPORTANT: put the icing that you will not use immediately in closed containers to prevent drying.

As I could not find coloring I used chocolate instead of black color. The best nozzels for details are the smaller ones. If you don't have pastry bags or nozzels use a bag frozen and make a small hole in the corner as I did. For the shape if you don't have specifically halloween shapes you can cut with a knife the shape you want or you can use cutters you already have (a bear for example) and modify it to look like ghost, mummies... Bon profit!!


In this webpage you will find good ideas for different shapes and you will see how good they look with coloring, glycerin and... made by someone with more experience than me!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sugarenvy/3339447741/