Everything I actually make for Halloween, in one place: the decorated sugar cookies, the no-bake things you can pull off the morning of, the blondies that eat the leftover candy, and the pumpkin bakes worth turning the oven on for.
I will be honest with you, I am not much of a Halloween person. Not the blood, not the bones, definitely not the giant spiders on the front of people’s houses. But I am extremely a person who will bake for a party, and Halloween is a very good excuse for a party. So here is my whole October rotation, sorted by what you actually need it to do.
If you are decorating cookies
My Halloween Sugar Cookies are the ones I make every year, spiderwebs and little black cats and one orange cat who is not a spook but deserves a cookie all the same. The spiderweb is genuinely just a toothpick dragged through wet icing. Nobody needs to know that.
If you want a cookie plate without any piping bags at all, the Bakehouse Texas Chocolate Chip Cookies are enormous and disappear fastest, and the New Classic Snickerdoodle is the one that makes the whole kitchen smell like fall.
If you have a mountain of leftover candy
This is what Candy Bar Blondies exist for. Browned butter, brown sugar, and a cup and a half of whatever candy is in the bowl, chopped. They bake in one pan in about 25 minutes and they use up the candy nobody is claiming. If you would rather keep it plain, my Best Classic Blondie Recipe is the base, and if you are truly out of energy, here is how to make box brownies better and nobody will know.
If you need something no-bake
Candy Corn and Salted Peanut Rice Krispie Treats take about ten minutes and hit the exact salty-sweet thing candy corn is for, even if you claim not to like candy corn. Mom’s Peanut Butter Balls are the other no-oven option, and they are dangerously easy to eat standing at the counter.
If you want the pumpkin things
Pumpkin Bread with Walnuts is the loaf I make on repeat from September onward, and the Brown Butter Pumpkin Texas Sheet Cake is what I bring when I am feeding an actual crowd, because a sheet cake feeds everyone and travels flat.
If you want apples instead
Apple Cinnamon Texas Sheet Cake is the apple answer to the pumpkin sheet cake. The Overnight Apple Fritter Focaccia is the showoff, you start it the night before and wake up to it. And the Apple Butter and Cream Cheese Kolaches are the ones people ask about afterward.
If you are throwing an actual party
Make the Homemade Yeasted Doughnuts. They are a project and they are worth it, and a tray of warm doughnuts ends a Halloween party better than anything I know. The Ultimate Cookies and Cream Brownies are the low-effort version of the same idea.
What to make if you only have an hour
Rice krispie treats, then blondies, in that order. The treats are done in ten minutes and set while you do everything else, and the blondies are one bowl, one pan, about 25 minutes in a 350 degree F oven. That is a full plate of Halloween with almost no planning, which is usually the situation I find myself in.
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