Halloween Cookies

1. 1

   Place the flour and sugar in a bowl and stir in the lemon zest. Add the softened butter, egg and vanilla extract and beat together to make a crumbly dough. Gather the dough together with your hands and knead lightly on a floured surface until smooth. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 mins.

2. 2

   Line 3 large cookie sheets with parchment paper. Lightly knead the dough again then roll out on a floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness. Use different shaped Halloween cookie cutters to stamp out about 30 cookies, re-rolling the dough as necessary. Place all the cookies on the cookie sheets and chill in the fridge for 15 mins. Preheat the oven to 375u00b0F.

3. 3

   Bake the cookies, in batches, for 10-12 mins until pale golden. Leave on the cookie sheets for 2-3 mins then transfer to wire cooling racks and leave to cool completely.

4. 4

   Sift the powdered sugar into a bowl, add the egg white and whisk slowly with an electric hand-held whisk to make a smooth icing. Whisk in some of the lemon juice to get a softer consistency, if needed. Divide the icing into 2 bowls and color one bowl orange with a few drops of orange food coloring. Coat the pumpkin cookies with the orange icing and the ghost cookies with the white icing. Leave the iced cookies to set. Cover the remaining white icing with plastic wrap to prevent it from drying out.

5. 5

   When the iced cookies are set, spoon the rest of the white icing into a piping bag and snip off the end. Use the white icing and tubes of chocolate, red, green and yellow writing icings to decorate the iced and un-iced cookies. Leave to set.

* Per serving · 4 servings · Values may vary.