happy halloween

Make the scary season a particularly spook-tacular one with these treats from Jane Dunn

- Jane Dunn

Skeleton biscuits

MAKES 14 PREP 10 mins plus 1 hr chilling COOK 25 mins EASY V

• 200g unsalted butter
• 100g caster sugar
• 265g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1 tsp black food colouring

For the decoration

• 80g icing sugar

1 Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together with a whisk or electric beaters until smooth and fluffy. Tip in the plain flour, cocoa powder, and food colouring, and mix again. Chill for 30 mins - this will make the dough easier to roll out. Lightly flour the work surface and roll out the dough until 1cm thick.

2 Cut out the biscuits using a person-shaped cutter, and arrange on 2-3 large baking trays. Reroll the excess dough and repeat. Chill the dough cut-outs for 30 mins.

3 Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/ gas 4 and bake for 18-21 mins, until hardening around the edges. Leave to cool fully.

4 Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and gradually pour in 1-1/2 tbsp water, mixing constantly, to get a thick paste. Put the icing in a piping bag, snip a little off the end to make a small hole, and pipe bone shapes and a skull onto the biscuits so they look like skeletons. Leave to set. Will keep for up to a week in an airtight container.

PER SERVING 255 kcals fat 13g saturates 8g. carbs 28g - sugars 13g-fibre 1g-protein 3g. salt 0.4g

Halloween doughnuts

MAKES 12 PREP 10 mins COOK 25 mins EASY V