
It can be so upsetting to bake for classrooms of kids…. I have learned my lesson the hard way. Laboring over homemade birthday cupcakes with cute decorations to bring in for preschool birthday celebrations, only to see kids lick off the frosting and throw them in the garbage… take one bite and throw them in the garbage…. You get the idea.
Both of my kids (now in 2nd & 4th grade) had a Halloween celebration at school this year where parents were asked to volunteer to help or bring in treats or supplies. I can’t help myself! I had to volunteer to bake. 🙂 Our first plan was to make bat sugar cookies. Then I imagined rolling, cutting, chilling, baking, and decorating 60 bats and watching kids throw them out. Nope. When I saw these festive bite-sized sugar cookies I knew that they were a much better choice. Cute and quick. My kids also helped make them by rolling the dough into balls, sprinkling the sanding sugar, and adding the candy corns. This recipe was adapted from Martha Stewart Living Special Issues.
My son and daughter each brought 30 sugar and 30 chocolate-sugar cookies to school to celebrate. Perfect! I had a couple leftover to bring to Fiesta Friday #40 this week too! Happy Halloween! 🙂

Yield: 64 bite-sized cookies
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, 1 stick, very soft
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)
- orange sanding sugar
- About 64 candy corns (I used Brach’s)
Note: To make the chocolate variation: Reduce the amount of all-purpose flour to 1 cup. Add 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder along with the flour in step 3.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees (convection). Place butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer; beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Beat in egg yolks, vanilla, baking powder, and salt.
- Add flour (and cocoa if making the chocolate version), and mix until a dough forms.
- Scoop out level teaspoons of dough (I used the teaspoon side of my melon baller & scooped it out with a tiny condiment spoon), and roll into balls. Chill dough balls for about 10 minutes prior to baking.
- Place balls on 3 parchment-lined baking sheets, 2 inches apart. Sprinkle with orange sanding sugar.
- Bake until edges are firm and cookies are dry to the touch (do not let cookies color), 9 to 10 minutes on convection, or up to 12 minutes in a standard oven.
- Remove from oven; gently press a candy corn into center of each cookie (surface of cookies may crack slightly). Cool on sheets 1 minute; transfer to a rack to cool completely.

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