Buttercream Frosted Jack o’ Lantern Cookies – 13 Days of Halloween

Halloween is soo close! I am so excited. Today’s tutorial is for these fun Jack o’ Lantern cookies with buttercream frosting.

Jack o’ Lantern cookies are a great Halloween treat for little ones to eat. They will recognize the fun Halloween shape without getting too scary or creepy. Of course, you can decorate these Jack o’ Lantern cookies with creepier faces.

As I’ve mentioned in my previous 13 Days of Halloween Cookie Decorating posts, I like Halloween, but kid-level-spooky Halloween.

Follow along for the step-by-step cookie decorating tutorial, plus video tutorial!

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Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Jack o’ Lantern Cookies

For how to make Jack o’ Lantern cookies for your Halloween party, you will want to gather:

• 3 Icing bags
• 2 Couplers
• Wilton #3 and #18 tip sizes – buy these individually at a bake supply store or purchase this kit
• Pumpkin cookie cutter – I used the one in this set which includes cookie cutters used for some of my other Halloween decorating tutorials as well
• Wilton yellow, orange, and brown gel food dyes, I’ve found the best price at Walmart
• Palette knife
• Ingredients for a crusting buttercream, find my crusting buttercream icing recipe here
• Ingredients for sugar cookie dough, find my no spread sugar cookies recipe here
  • I used my espresso chip recipe, coming to you soon!

Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up The Icing Bags

1. Roll, cut out, and bake your sugar cookies according to the recipe. You will be able to make about 18 sugar cookies with the cookie cutter & recipes linked above.
2. Make your buttercream icing and take out one half cup of frosting and mix in the brown food dye. Then, add that to an icing bag with the tip #18 in it.
3. Remove a cup of frosting from the mixer and mix in the yellow gel food dye. Add that frosting to an icing bag with a coupler in it.
4. Color the remaining frosting orange. Add that frosting to an icing bag with a coupler in it until the frosting is to the max fill line.
   • If you don’t know how to set up icing bags, just hop over to my Getting Started: Learn How to Decorate Buttercream Cookies page for a detailed explanation.

Part 3: The Tutorial for How to Make Jack o’ Lantern Cookies

Check out the video here to see how to decorate Jack o’ Lantern cookies for Halloween. Then, check out the breakdown step-by-step photo series tutorial below.

1. Attach the tip #3 to the yellow frosting. Pipe out some frosting in the middle of the cookie & then spread it out with the palette knife.
2. Remove/rinse/dry the tip #3 from the yellow frosting and attach it to the orange. Outline the Jack o’ Lantern’s face, just like you would if you were carving a pumpkin. Then, outline the edge of the pumpkin except for the stem.
3. Fill in the pumpkin with the orange frosting & then smooth it with the palette knife. For tips on smoothing buttercream, check out my post here.
4. To clean up the pumpkin, outline the face and outer edges again. Then, draw curved lines for the pumpkin’s ridges.
5. Use the brown frosting with the tip #18 to squeeze out a stem at the top of the pumpkin.

These Jack o’ Lantern cookies are so fun and way less messy than the real thing! Another added bonus is of course getting to eat tasty buttercream sugar cookies as Halloween treat.

It would be really fun to do a pumpkin cookie decorating contest as well. Have each party guest or family member decorate a few cookies and they can submit their best one for judging.

Save the Tutorial for How to Decorate Jack o’ Lantern Sugar Cookies

Use the image below to pin this Halloween cookie decorating tutorial to your Halloween party board on Pinterest. Alternatively, use any of the social share icons on the top of the page to share it to your favorite social media site.

Thank you for sharing! I’d love to know in the comments below, do you carve pumpkins for Halloween as a tradition?