When the leaves start to change color, I can’t resist making Chocolate Cutout Cookies in the shapes of leaves, pumpkins, and acorns. Sometimes I’ll add a squirrel-shaped cookie to the batch if the squirrels haven’t been too pesty during the summer. If they’ve dug up all my potted plants and terrorized the birds I try to attract into my garden, well, then I refuse to give them any attention when it comes to making fall cookies.

The elaborate designs for el Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) has always intrigued me. So I decided to decorate my Halloween cookies to celebrate this age-old Mexican tradition of honoring the dead. The intricate swirls and colorful flowers that make up the designs for el Día de los Muertos are ideal decorations for cookies...the perfect pairing of the symbols for life and death.

The best thing about Halloween is that it means the beginning of the holiday baking season. And although Halloween is not my favorite holiday, making Halloween cookies is a lot of fun. Ghosts and Jack o’Lanterns, cats and ghosts...what great shapes.