Mandarin Orange Halloween Cookies

I know I'm a little nuts when it comes to food.

Go ahead, laugh, I can take it.

I had fun last week hand dipping some beeswax candles for Lantern Fest, the candles will be sold as part of their fundraising efforts for the lighthouse.

And just cause I can't keep out of the kitchen, I decided to help them out by baking some cookies.

I was going to make some cookies I call Grand Slams, (I'll make some soon and will share the recipe)  but I decided to go ahead and pick up the theme of the the Lantern Fest, well, kinda pick it up, and since Halloween will only be a week away I thought,

PUMPKINS!!!!

And not just any pumpkins, Pumpkins that looked like they had stained glass inserts, that you could hold up to the light and see through.

And....

Wait for it...

I decided to try a twist on the regular sugar cookie.  

I'm not real fond of oranges, quite frankly, but I like a hint of orange flavour in a lot of foods.

I know, right?

Well, I bought this Mandarin Fused Olive Oil and wondered how it would be in a cookie.  I wasn't too sure if it would work, but I wasn't going to use more than a couple of tablespoons as part of the fat in the dough, so I thought it might work.    I mean the Greeks and other Mediterranean countries have been using Olive Oil for centuries, and I bet they used Olive Oil in cookies. Actually I know they did cause I googled it.

Here's my take on Orange Halloween cookies.   And they're semi healthy, cause they are made with Olive Oil, and not a lot of sugar either. 

Recipe:  Mandarin Orange Halloween Cookies   Makes about 6 dozen.

1/4 cup Mandarin Fused Olive Oil
1/4 cup  Butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. Lemon Extract  (I used my Homemade Lemon Extract)
1 tsp. Orange Zest 
2  cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder

Sift the flour and baking powder together and set aside.  Cream the butter, sugar and Mandarin fused olive oil together until the sugar has dissolved into the butter/olive oil.   Add the egg and mix well, then add the lemon extract and finally the flour mixture.

  Form  into a ball and place in the fridge to rest for half an hour.

Preheat oven to 375, then, 
Take out half the dough, roll out thinly and cut into shapes.    Bake for 9-11 minutes or until they just start to brown.

Here's where I had fun.   I thought it would be kinda cool to make some stained glass looking cookies.

So I cut some eyes into some of the pumpkin shapes, baked the cookies for about 5 minutes, took them out, added some crushed Jolly Rancher cookies into the cut out part, then put them back in the over for a few more minutes.

 And the cookies are good, but next time I'll add some orange zest to them, they needed, something...

Took them out and let them cool on the Silpat sheet, then peeled them off very carefully.
I decided that was just too fiddly as I was running short on time, so I just made some more pumpkin shapes, sprinkled them with some turbinado sugar, and took the rest of the dough, rolled it out and cut that into little squares.

  I then took one of my metal frosting tips, punched a little hole, well, I did fiddle around trying to get them to just the size of a life saver in the middle,

and baked them part way, and plunked a life saver in the middle, and let them continue to bake.

 See...
Oh and the red thing at the side, to the right?

Well I had a lot of crushed candies so I decided to let them melt together. 

I now have a giant lollipop without a stick in it.

And here we are all ready to pack up for the sale.

Well I'm ready, at least the cookies are.     And I also baked some more cookies, but with a different recipe and I'll share that one later on.