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Asobi Asobase – workshop of fun – is an amazing comedy show, and if you aren’t watching it, you should be! Why, you may ask? Besides all the hilarious middle school hijinks the girls get up to, there’s also COOKIE DECORATING involved, which I am 100% here for. Obviously. In episode 11, the Occult Club gets down to business to create some spooky cookies for the multicultural fair. They decide on broomsticks, witch’s hats…and mice that have run into a cement wall. A bit of an odd choice, but that just reflects back on the genius comedy of the show. It’s pretty normal…until all of a sudden you remember just how very odd middle school kids are.
Also, can I just add, whose school has an occult club? I mean, seriously, this club pops us all the time in tons of anime, but I just have to ask- why? Maybe it’s just America, but such a club would NEVER fly in any of the schools I’ve worked at.
Amazing! Delicious! Stupendous! There’s really not much to say, except that I was so moved by this cookie design, I had to add it to me repertoire of Halloween-themed recipes this month. I find the comedy in this show to be EXTREMELY spot-on for middle schoolers (and I would know, because I teach them on a daily basis). I thought these would be fun to bring to class and share with my students and coworkers, and they were very impressed.
The challenge here is in getting the hang of the decorating process, but this is the perfect thing to do with friends, maybe at a Halloween party. Everyone can decorate their own cookies, and get the hang of using cookie icing (royal icing). I strongly encourage you to give it a shot, as it’s a fun Halloween project!
Watch the video below to see the full process for decorating these adorable cookies.
Ingredients and Supplies for the Occult Club’s Spooky Cookies
A note on the cookies and icing:
I follow a wonderful cookie decorator on Youtube. She goes by Sweet Ambs, and creates beautiful designs using Royal Icing. Because I’m such a fan, I bought her personal recipe for sugar cookies and royal icing. I think it was totally worth it- the recipe produced fantastic sugar cookies, and her icing recipe gave me more than enough icing for my cookies. I would recommend checking out her website here, and buying her recipes here (you can just buy the cookie and icing recipe sepertely from everything else).
If you’d prefer a free, but untested-by-me recipes:
The goal is to find a sugar cookie recipe that doesn’t spread, so that when you cut out your cookie shapes, they look sharp and clean coming out of the oven. Here are a few sugar cookie recipe options that look like they’ll do the trick, though I haven’t tested them out myself: Baking a Moment, Midget Momma, and Genius Kitchen all have pretty good recipes. Pay attention to the amounts of cookies each makes, and adjust the recipe accordingly.
Royal icing is notoriously tricky to work with- you need a stand mixer to pull it together, it dries out fast, and is messy to dye different colors. I think it’s worth making because it’s cheaper than buying it, and you can get personalized colors. All royal icing recipes are a combination of water, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and meringue powder. Baking a Moment has a similar recipe to the one I used. You want to pay attention to how much it makes compared to how many cookies you’re making. You can also optionally buy royal icing from a baker’s store, or a Michael’s. That is a great option if you don’t want to go to all the fuss and mess of making your own.
Supplies you need:
-Sugar cookies, cut in the shapes of hats, broomsticks, and squares
-Royal icing, dyed black (flood consistency), gray black (flood consistency), gray (flood consistency), brown (medium consistency), yellow (stiff consistency), and a light yellow for the little mouse feet (medium consistency).
-A rack or plate for drying out your cookies
-Piping bags (disposable)
-Couplers for piping bags/ icing tips.
To Decorate the Spooky Cookies
The best way I can show you to decorate is by watching the video. Below are some tips I have for you about royal icing, and decorating the cookies.
Royal Icing
When you make it up, will be in what we call “stiff consistency”. It will be very firm, and will require elbow grease to stir dye through. If you add just a splash- a tablespoon or so- of water, and stir, add a splash more, and stir, until it’s no longer so difficult to stir, you’ll have “medium consistency”. If you keep adding another splash, and then another, you should get to “flood consistency”. You will know it’s there when the icing, when dropped from a spoon, melds back together with the icing in the bowl seamlessly within 10 seconds.
Witch’s Hat Cookies
Should be decorated with the gray black flood icing, and the black flood icing. Use a piping tip #1 for the black icing, and a #2 tip for the gray black icing. Use a skewer or toothpick to evenly distribute the icing to get it to the shape you want.
Mouse in Concrete Wall Cookies
Should be decorated with the gray flood icing, black flood icing, and light yellow medium consistency icing. Use a piping tip #1 for the black icing, a #2 for the gray icing, and just put the light yellow in a plastic baggie and snip a small tip off. Use a skewer or toothpick to evenly distribute the icing to get it to the shape you want. Use the skewer to eek out the little mouse feet.
Broomstick Cookies
Should be decorated with the brown medium consistency icing, and yellow stiff consistency icing. Use a #3 tip for the brown, and a #2 tip for the yellow. Use a skewer or toothpick to evenly distribute the icing along the handle. Otherwise, just have fun with the broomstick bristles. This one doesn’t require a whole lot of technique.
I hope you enjoyed this post! Check in next week for another recipe, and to check out more anime food recipes, visit my blog. If you have any questions or comments, leave them below! I recently got a Twitter, so you can follow me at @yumpenguinsnack if you would like, and DEFINITELY feel free to send me food requests! My Tumblr is yumpenguinsnacks.tumblr.com. Find me on Youtube for more video tutorials! Enjoy the food, and if you decide to recreate this dish, show me pics! 😀