These small cookies taste as good as they look.   Our boys can’t get enough of them.   I’ve made both the vanilla and the chocolate version and they’re equally as tasty, although being the chocoholic that I am, I think I slightly prefer the chocolate ones.

I recommend following the cooking instructions exactly.   I left my cookies in the oven for 11 minutes and promptly took them out.   I didn’t let them brown.   As soon as they come out of the oven and while they’re still hot, gently push the candy corn into the top of them.   They look very festive when you have a pile of them on a plate.

Candy Corn Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Martha Stewart.com

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)**
About 18 pieces of candy corn

** For chocolate cookies, reduce the flour to 1/2 cup and add 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place butter and sugar in a medium bowl; beat with a wooden spoon until combined. Beat in egg yolk, vanilla, baking powder, and salt. Add flour (or flour and cocoa if you’re making chocolate cookies), and mix until a dough forms.

Scoop out level teaspoons of dough, and roll into balls (chill dough briefly if it becomes too soft to handle). Place balls on baking sheets, 2 inches apart.  As an alternative to a level teaspoon of dough, I use my ice cream scoop.  I fill it with dough, release the dough from the scoop and divide that amount in half to form two smaller balls of dough.

Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are firm and cookies are dry to the touch (do not let cookies color), 10 to 12 minutes.

Remove from oven; gently press a candy corn into center of each cookie (surface of cookies may crack slightly). Cool on sheets 1 minute; transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Yield:  18 cookies

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