Let toddlers roll the dough out!

When you think of making sugar cookies with the kids, you probably think of Christmas. But Halloween is the perfect time to get in some baking time with your little ones.

Even toddlers can play a big role in creating these - let them doll the dough and do some of the icing. Younger ones (think one year old) can be the supervisor and be in charge of all of the cookie cutters. They can also randomly add sprinkles. They delight at being included in this edible art!

Here's a look at the best sugar cookie mixes and cookie cutters for making Halloween treats with young children. I made all of these with my 2.5 year old and served them up at a party for taste testing.

 

The Snow Angel Sugar Cookie mix from KidsCentralKitchen.com ($4.99) was the party favorite. It was also the easiest to work with.

It's all natural and doesn't require and raw eggs to be added to the mix... which means no worries about your little helpers taking little bites from the dough. (Raw eggs hold the potential for Salmonella food poisoning.)

Their cookie cutters ($5.99 for a pack of 7 small shapes, kidscentralkitchen.com) are great because in addition to the typical Halloween cat, ghost, bat and pumpkin, you also get a moon, owl and witch. This really delighted my little helper who loves the moon. See was so excited we made extra moons (& frosted them blue, of course).

To add to the fun of making the cookies, KidsCentralKitchen.com also sells a fun "Happy" mixing spoon ($4.99) to get your little chefs really into mixing the dough.

Ann Clark Limited has some really cute oversized cookie cutters that are perfect for little hands to work with ($3.99, annclark.com). They come in black cats, bats, ghosts and pumpkins. (They also have dozens of really cute cookie cutters for other occasions too.)

Their sugar cookie mix ($4.99, annclark.com) is low on sugar. It tastes much more like shortbread than sugar cookies. But it was really tasty and easy to work with.

Ann Clark's cookie cutters come with a recipe for homemade frosting that is a perfect compliment to the cookie's mild flavor.

Pelican Bay has the sweetest cookies of these three mixes. Their Make & Paint Ghost Cookie Mix comes with sugar cookie mix, frosting mix, a tube of black goo and a ghost cookie cutter ($10.95, pelicanbay.com).

The instructions on the box have a neat idea for making mess free cookies with the kids. But it didn't work for me. The dough wasn't solid enough when made as directed for making shaped cookies. I ended up refrigerating it for an hour and rolling it out with flour like I did with the others. Following the instructions resulted in a partial batch of ghosts that bloated past recognition in the oven. 

Here are some other fun ideas to do with the Halloween cookie cutters:

• Make spooky sandwiches
• Cut out Jell—O 
• Make shapes in clay
• Use them to trace then color in 
• Cut out shapes from ice cream sold in rectangular tubs and then sliced; put between two cookies of the same shape for an ice cream sandwich
• Make a wreath for the door, using the handle to attach the cookie cutter
• Cut out fondant icing for cake decorating