Halloween Treats: Vampire Cookies

Ever since I came across these cookies last year at Baking Bites, I have been wanting to make them! I am just a little crazy about all things vampire. So much so that my sister Shannon and I do a podcast called Hexed where we talk about supernatural television and I always look forward to Vampire Diaries! So these cookies looked perfect for a spooky Halloween treat this year and I finally found some time to make them. These cookies require an honour chilling time so I made the dough one day, the cookies the next.

This is a very easy cookie dough. Cream together butter and sugar. Then add an egg, vanilla and almond extract.

Dump in flour and salt and mix. That is it! No leavener, no nothing. Mix to combine:

This is the consistency you want. Enough for it to be sticky but not too wet that it is falling apart. Roll into a ball, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.

You are supposed to roll out the dough to 1/8″ thick and I think my cookies were more like 1/4″ thick. I am not good with measurements but I did find a glass that was 2″ wide that I used to cut out the disks. I worked with a 1/4 of the dough at a time. Put half the disks on a baking sheet:

Top with 1 tsp of a red-coloured jam, I used my breadmaker strawberry rhubarb jam that I kept frozen in my deep freeze. Top with another disk and use your fingers to seal shut, then press the edges down towards with baking sheet:

Poke vampire bite holes using a bamboo skewer or toothpick. Bake in a 325F oven for 10-12 minutes. My cookies took 12 minutes to make because they were much thicker. I only ended up with one dozen cookies, not two. Yup, my cookies were definitely too thick!

For the first five minutes let them cool on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack:

I knew my cookies were not going to bleed easily like the original recipe because I got the thickness wrong so what I did was make an extremely thick white paste with a lot of icing sugar and a little bit of water. I smeared the paste over the top of the cookies and let harden for a bit. Then I made new holes with a jam-covered bamboo skewer and dribbled some of the jam out of the holes.

These cookies are fantastic! Yes, I kind of screwed them up but I do not care, they turned out perfectly if you ask me. Definitely use a high quality jam and I really recommend you do the glaze on top no matter what. I think the glaze takes the cookies over the edge!

Finally, I got around to making these cookies and they were not a disappointment. I love the trickling of blood from the bite marks, such a cute touch and adding the glaze really helps the red from the jam pop! I put these in my deep freeze, they are definitely Halloween party worthy. I will be sharing them this Halloween for sure at my party! I give this recipe (made this way) five out of five wooden spoons.