Scroll down for the video, behind-the-scenes pictures, Eleni’s recipe, and a special discount code for Halloween cookies!

You are in for a treat today! We spent an afternoon at Eleni’s Cookies production studio in Long Island City where we learned some Halloween decorating tricks from the cookie master herself. Eleni needs no introduction {if you haven’t heard of her, stop what you’re doing now and look}. Her cookies have been the talk of the town since she started baking in her home 16 years ago. She now has a production studio in Long Island City that turns out 20-30,000 custom hand-iced sugar cookies a day! The secret to her success? Her cookies are not only cleverly designed and on trend {think fashion and emoticon designs}, but they also taste really good! Her cookies are nut-free and kosher, which makes them great for school events, parties, gifts, bake sales and trick-or-treating. Even though Eleni has built a cookie empire, it was clear when we visited her studio that she has maintained a boutique environment with her cookie stamp all over it. Eleni is involved with every part of her business, including recipe development, cookie designs, production, marketing and sales. We had a lovely time decorating with Eleni and her team. Scroll down for a quick and fun video of Eleni and I decorating Halloween cookies, as well as behind-the-scenes photos.

You can buy her cookies here in time for Halloween and scroll down to find all the stores where you can buy her cookies, as well as a special Halloween discount she is offering for you all!

The Eleni’s Cookies team hard at work in the studio…

Can you believe that each cookie is hand punched? The level of detail is quite incredible!

Freshly baked and spooky ghost cookies…

Eleni’s Team Piping Away…

Eleni and I joined in. These cookies we ate!

Eleni shared her technique for decorating cobweb cookies. After flooding a sugar cookie with white royal icing, pipe black royal icing in circles from the center of the cookie to the border of the cookie. While the black icing is still wet, create cobwebs by dragging a toothpick from the center of the cookie to the edge of the cookie and vice versa.

Drying on a baking rack…black cat, ghost, candy corn, cobweb, pumpkin and witch cookies.

While we were in the studio, we also checked out production of Eleni’s crisp cookies. They have chocolate chip, butterscotch, oatmeal chocolate chip, pink sugar, and gingerbread cookies. We also LOVE these Color Me! Cookie sets that kids can color with at home.

How fun are these haunted house cookies?

And these Monster’s Ball Cookies?

And these Trick or Treat Cookies?

Packaged and ready to go…

You can buy Eleni’s Cookies online, visit her store in Chelsea, or find her cookies in Whole Foods, Fairway, Zabars, Dean & Deluca, Fresh Direct, Barneys, Bergdorf’s and Sak’s 5th Avenue. If you are outside the US, you can order by calling Cookie HQ 888-435-3647.

Eleni is also offering 15% off for her Halloween gift boxes to our readers if you use the code SWEETSNYC. The offer is a 1 time use, only for online, and valid until 10/31. 

If you feel inspired to try her recipe, Eleni graciously offered her sugar cookie recipe. Scroll down below.

Eleni’s Sugar Cookie Recipe

Sugar Dough

1 ¾ flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

½ cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 egg

 

1.   Preheat oven to 325º F

2.  Place flour, baking powder and nutmeg into a bowl. Mix ingredients until thoroughly distributed.

3.  In a mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Add vanilla and beat. Add egg and beat.

4.  Gradually add the flour mixture, until well combined but not over mixed.

5.  Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

6.  On a lightly floured work surface, roll out the dough to 1/8’’ thickness. Using cookie cutters, cut out Halloween

shapes & lift the cookies to the baking sheets.

7.  Gather up leftover dough, roll it out again and cut out more shapes.

8.  Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Place cookies on a wire rack to cool.

 

Royal Icing:

3 oz. pasteurized egg whites

1 tsp. vanilla extract

4 cups confectioners’ sugar, plus a little more for thickening the outlining icing

1.  In a large mixing bowl combine the egg whites and vanilla and beat until frothy.

2.  Add confectioners’ sugar gradually and mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated and mixture is shiny.

3. Turn speed up to high and beat until mixture forms stiff, glossy peaks.This should take approximately 5 to 7 minutes.

4. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring to achieve desired color. If using multiple colors, divide royal icing into separate bowls and then add coloring.

5. You’ll also need to divide the icing for the outlining and for the flooding. The outlining icing should be slightly stiffer than the flooding icing. Set aside a quarter of the icing and slowly add in confectioners’ sugar as needed to make this portion of the royal icing stiffer. This will be your outlining icing. The remaining looser 3/4 icing will be for flooding the cookie.

6. Transfer thicker outlining icing to a pastry bag and outline the cookie as desired.

7. Transfer the looser flooding icing to a pastry bag and pipe the area inside the outline of the cookie. Use an offset spatula to spread out the icing within the outline of the cookie.

8. Using the flooding icing, continue to decorate with royal icing according to the design. The colors and design will vary depending on the specific design.

9. If you want sparkly cookies {like the candy corn cookies in the video above}, poor granulated sugar on top of cookies while the icing is still wet and then tap off additional sugar.

10. Allow to dry for several hours or overnight. Enjoy!