Spooktacular Cinnamon Halloween Cookies
Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 cup non-sweetened butter
1 pound fresh cinnamon
2 turkey necks
12 oz. Ground beef
3 tsp. Sugar

These wonderful treats take a little bit of effort, but the smiles you see when you hurl them at strangers are more than worth it.

First, combine your flour, vanilla, butter and bees wax in a large bowl. Mix until it is the consistency of chilled nitrobenzenamine.

Next, remove golf-ball sized clumps of the dough, and shape it into fun Halloween shapes. Since this is your first time, try something simple, like witches. You’ll need some basic sculpting tools to get the shape right (like I said, it takes a little work!).

A toothbrush can be used to capture the exact texture of the witch’s hair. A toothpick or a needle can be used for finer details, like the thread holes on her coat buttons, and the wart on her tiny little nose. Be sure to shape the face into a scowling expression, and add fun little details, like minute scratches around her neck where perhaps some witch hunters tried to hang her once. To get accurate details, you can go to your local library and research witches. An excellent reference is D. B. Cumming’s “Witchcraft and Legend: Separating the myth from fact in American folklore” by Waldorf Press, published 1995 with a forward by Sandra Bernhardt.

After six or seven hours, you should have your first witch cookie ready for baking. Repeat this step with the remaining four dozen cookies.

As a side note, as you get better at making your fun cookie shapes, you can try more complex ones, such as a little cookie dough skeletons that actually laugh and threaten to consume your soul. I’ve been doing this for a while, so now my cookies are shaped as abstract ideas. This year my cookies are going to be shaped like trepidation.

Now that you have your little army of witches, take an ordinary rolling pin, cover it in flower, and flatten them all out. They should be a nice round cookie shape, about 1/4 inch in diameter.

Sprinkle on your cinnamon, until it is a layer about 1/2 inch thick. Grease a cookie sheet and give it to a friend for safe keeping.

Bake your cookies for 12 minutes at 375 degrees. Serve them while they’re warm, if possible, and watch the sugar-induced happiness come alive!

Keep practicing, and you’ll be ready for the coming October holiday!

Happy Halloween!