Crystal ball cookies have got to be a winner when it comes to Halloween bakes. First of all, these are so much fun to make! Secondly, they look stunning as treats wrapped up in cellophane to give as gifts during spooky season, or as pretty table decorations hung on string (simply pierce a hole in the top before baking). And thirdly, you can mix and match the flavour of your cookies and the colours of your icing depending on your mood! As a matter of fact, I’ve listed all of my favourite spooky colour combos below and a few alternative flavours below – so you can take your pick!
What you’ll need for these Crystal Ball Cookies:
While not all of these are essential for making these cookies, they do make life easier. Here’s what you’ll need:
- A Crystal ball cookie cutter. A cookie cutter bought from Amazon is especially useful, but you can also make your own! Using a piece of firm cardboard, draw around a circular cookie cutter then draw on the base of your Crystal ball and cut it out using scissors. Then, all you need to do is trace around the cardboard cut-out with a sharp knife.
- Piping bags. This is essential for outlining your cookies with icing before flooding them completely. I like Lakeland’s Easy Grip piping bags.
- ProGel Food Colouring. These are hands-down the best food colourings in the game if you want a concentrated colour.
- Baking tray and baking parchment. Use a good non-stick baking tray lined with baking parchment.
- Edible gold leaf or edible glitter. A fun addition to these crystal ball cookies for that extra pizazz!
What colours combos look good on these Crystal Ball Cookies:
- Purple and baby blue. Deep tones of purple coupled with bright baby blue is a stunner with edible gold leaf.
- Black and white. Keep your look for these cookies monochrome with greys, blacks and whites. Some silver edible glitter looks beautiful with this combination.
- Teal and navy. Embrace the blues with this gorgeous pairing of deep, dark tones and a bright teal pop.
- Pink and purple. Stunning when marbled together, this colour combination is unreal with a hint of purple edible glitter.
- Gold and orange. Different from the above combination, this combination is a Halloween vibe. Bright, vibrant and fun, all in one.
How to make your own Crystal Ball Cookie cutter:
Flavour variations:
The biscuit base can easily be flavoured differently, although I personally like a warming spicy dough for this time of year. Here are my top three alternatives – simply follow the same instructions for combining the dry and wet ingredients below:
1. Simple butter cookie. Use 500g plain flour, 180g caster sugar, 250g salted butter, 2 large eggs and a splash of milk if needed.
2. Vanilla cookie. Use 350g plain flour, 150g self-raising flour, 125g caster sugar, 125g salted butter, 125g golden syrup, 1 large egg and 1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste.
3. Chocolate cookie. Use 275g plain flour, 100g self-raising flour, 75g cocoa powder, 125g caster sugar, 125g golden syrup and 1 large egg.
See how I made these over on Instagram!
Crystal Ball Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies
- 200 g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp mixed spice
- 50 g dark brown muscovado sugar
- 100 g salted butter
- 50 g black treacle
For the icing
- 2 egg whites
- 450 g icing sugar sifted
- ProGel Food Colouring in various colours
Instructions
To make the cookies
- Preheat the oven to 170C / 350F and line two baking trays with parchment paper. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices into a large mixing bowl, then add the sugar and mix well.
- Add the butter, using your fingers to rub it into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
- Once all the butter is incorporated, make a well in the centre and add your treacle. Bring it together using a spoon – it may look dry but persevere and use your hands to bring the mixture together to form a dough. N.B. The dough should be smooth in texture and colour, with no streaks of treacle left in it.
- Lightly flour your work surface and place the down on top, rolling to a thickness of around 3-4mm.
- Either using a cookie cutter, or your cardboard cutout, cut around 24 crystal-ball shaped cookies out of the dough and lay onto your prepared baking trays.
- Bake for 14-18 minutes until slightly darker in colour. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on the tray.
To ice and decorate
- To make the icing, mix together the egg whites and icing sugar. It'll look like it needs more liquid at first, but keep going and you'll get a thick paste – perfect for line icing.
- When your cookies are completely cool, fill a piping bag with a quarter of the icing and snip the very end of it off. Begin piping the outline onto your cookies and leave to set.
- While the outlines set, add 1 more tablespoon of egg white to the remaining icing to thin it slightly for flooding. Mix well.
- Divide the rest of the icing into thirds and colour one part blue, one part purple and leave the final third white. Drizzle a tiny bit of the blue and purple into the white, swirling ever so slightly to create a marble effect.
- Use a tablespoon to dollop the marbled icing gently into each 'crystal ball'. You can use a toothpick to spread the icing to the edges. Finish with gold leaf, edible glitter, lustre or sprinkles before repeating the process with the remaining cookies.
- Leave to set completely before packaging or eating (if you can wait!)
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