5 Brain Cookies for This Year’s Halloween Party
The first Halloween cookie I ever made was a brain and I’ve never really moved on from it.
Pink frosting, a small round tip, a lot of wiggling.
They take longer than they look, because the piping is basically the entire job.
I still do a practice row on parchment before I touch the real ones, and I’d tell you to do the same.
Five below.
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1. Happy Brain Cookie
Out of everything on this list, this is the one that smiles back.
It’s royal icing, not buttercream, so the surface dries hard and flat and the cookie looks properly finished.
Hard icing also means you can stack them.
These are the ones I’d box up and send to a classroom, since they’re cute and not gruesome.
Give them overnight to dry before you move them anywhere.
2. Zombie Brain Cookies
Green faces with the tops of their heads open.
A wonky zombie is still a zombie, which makes these the most forgiving thing on the list.
There’s a decorating video on the recipe, and I’d watch it before you start, not halfway through.
3. Oreo Brain Cookies
No baking anywhere in this one.
The cookie comes out of a packet, so the only thing you’re learning is the squiggle.
That makes it the one to practice on before you commit to a batch you had to bake first.
It’s also the fastest, and I’ve made forty of them in an evening without much thinking.
4. Black Cocoa Cookies with Vanilla Brains Buttercream
This is the prettiest one here and it isn’t close.
Black cocoa is what does it.
It’s a different thing from regular cocoa and you can’t swap it without losing the color.
The near-black base makes the pale buttercream look almost lit up.
Chill the cookies before you pipe, because buttercream on a warm cookie slumps and takes your ridges with it.
If you’re taking one thing to a party, take these.
5. Panna Cotta Brain Cookies
Nothing gets piped here.
The brain is panna cotta, set in a mold and turned out onto a cookie.
You need that mold and there’s no working around it.
What you get for the trouble is wobble.
Everything else on this list is firm on firm, and this one moves when you carry the plate.
Piping the squiggle
Four of these come down to one skill, so twenty minutes on parchment is worth it before you touch a cookie.
Use the smallest round tip you own.
A star tip ridges every line and kills the effect.
Pipe one long continuous squiggle per half.
The unbroken line is what sells it.
Leave a shallow channel down the middle so the two halves read separately.
Two shades of pink, one a little deeper, and the wrinkles come for free.
Ahead of time, and getting them there
All the cookie bases keep for a few days in a tin undecorated, which is how I’d split the work.
Decorate the day of if you can, since the color stays brighter.
Anything with panna cotta in it waits in the fridge until people actually arrive.
One layer in the container, and put it somewhere in the car it can’t slide.
A cookie that turns up smeared looks worse than a cookie that turns up plain.
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