If you live in the Los Angeles area, there’s no doubt you’ve been to or heard of Mr. Bones Pumpkin Patch. Located on Doheny Drive in West Hollywood, Mr. Bones is your one stop destination for all things Halloween. Choose a pumpkin of virtually any shape or size, ride a pony, walk around the petting zoo, get your face painted, jump in the pumpkin bouncy house or whiz down the skeleton slide. So, as you could imagine, the day was only made better with the addition of the Pillsbury Make Halloween Sweet event benefiting the LA Regional Food Bank.
We had great fun at the cookie decorating station. What kid doesn’t like big chocolate chip cookies, marshmallows, yummy frosting and lots of toppings? The bakers on hand helped us create chomping monster cookies and we’re sharing the recipe with you here today.
We went home with another treat bag filled with all the ingredients to make mummy dogs — hot dogs wrapped in Pillsbury crescent rolls with mustard eyes. For a good laugh, see my version below compared to those done by the experts at Pillsbury headquarters. Yeah… now, that’s scary.
And, no Los Angeles event would be complete without a star siting. We caught actress and current Dancing with the Stars contestant Christina Milan enjoying the day with her daughter Violet as they checked out the face painting, pony rides and Pillsbury cookie decorating.
Moms, what are your favorite Halloween treats to make at home with the kids?
Pillsbury Chomping Monsters
Ingredients:
1 package (16 ounces) Pillsbury® Ready To Bake!™ refrigerated chocolate chip cookies (24 cookies)
1 1/4 cups white vanilla baking chips
1 container ready-to-spread frosting (any white variety)
Gel food colors, if desired
Red or black string licorice
Miniature semisweet chocolate chips
Large marshmallows
Candy-coated chocolate candies
Directions:
- Heat oven to 35 degrees F.
- On ungreased cookie sheet, place cookie dough rounds 2 inches apart.
- Bake 12 to 16 minutes or until edges are light golden brown.
- Cool 2 minutes, then remove from cookie sheet to cooling rack.
- Cool completely, about 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a medium-sized microwavable bowl, microwave 1 cup of the white vanilla baking chips uncovered on high for 45 seconds. Stir, if necessary, then microwave in 15-second increments, stirring after each, until chips can be stirred smooth.
- Cool 5 minutes.
- Stir in frosting until well blended. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the frosting mixture to attach decorations.
- Use gel food colors to tint remaining frosting in desired colors.
- Spoon each color of frosting into resealable food-storage plastic bag.
- Cut 1/2 inch off one corner of bag, and pipe on bottom of 1 cookie.
- Press another cookie, flat side down, on frosting at an angle, cookies touching on one side and about 1 inch apart on the other, to look like open mouth.
- To decorate, press remaining white vanilla baking chips in frosting for teeth. Use reserved frosting mixture to attach eyes, using decorations as desired.