25 | October | 2011 | I Crashed The Web

Candy corn is like cilantro — you either love it or you don’t. Me? I’m a semi fan. I can eat probably about 6 pieces before feeling a sugar high, crashing and then feeling sick. My husband isn’t a fan at all. So, to get in the spirit of Halloween, I decided to make some candy corn cookies — without any candy corn involved!

I found the recipe online, pinned it, and have been looking for the perfect day to make it (you need to set aside a decent chunk of time – you need to refrigerate the dough for at least a few hours or overnight, plus the actual forming of the dough into candy corn-like cookies takes time as well).

So, get ready and get baking! This week is the perfect time to get yor candy corn cookies baking:

Candy Corn Cookies

(Adapted from Land O Lakes website)

You’ll need:

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons orange juice (I just squeezed my own from about a half an orange)
2 teaspoons freshly grated orange zest
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Orange food color (I mixed yellow with red because I didn’t have orange at home)
Yellow food color
1/2 cup sugar

Here’s what you’ll do:

Line the inside of a 9×5-inch breadloaf pan with waxed plastic wrap.
Mix butter with 1 cup sugar, beat until creamy.
Add egg, orange juice, orange zest and salt to butter/sugar mixture. Continue beating until well mixed.
Mix together flour and baking soda. Add by 1/2 c portions to the wet ingredients. Beat until fully mixed.
Divide dough into thirds. Press one-third of white dough evenly onto bottom of prepared pan.
Place another third of dough back into the bowl and add yellow food color. Mix until blended and set the dough aside.
Place the final third of dough back into the bowl and add the yellow and red food coloring (or orange, if you have it). I used probably a ratio of 8:1 drops of yellow to red coloring to create an orange ball of dough.
Press the orange dough evenly over white dough in pan. Press yellow dough evenly over orange dough in pan.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until hard(at least 2 hours or overnight).
Place 1/2 cup sugar in large bowl and set aside.
Heat oven to 375°F. Invert loaf pan to remove dough. Peel off plastic wrap and place layered dough onto cutting surface.
Cut loaf crosswise into 1/4-inch slices. Cut each slice into 6 candy corn shaped wedges. Dip wedges in sugar and then place onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake for about 9 – 10 minutes, until edges are firm and bottoms just turning light brown.
Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. Immediately place warm cookies sugar bowl again; roll in sugar to coat.
Cool cookies completely on wire cooling rack.