Do strange things happen in your kitchen? Mysterious drafts, unexplained noises, objects going missing (especially chocolate chips)? I hate to break this news to you, but your kitchen might be just a teeny bit haunted. Don’t be embarrassed, it happens to the best of us, especially in late October.

The good news is that there is an easy solution. No priests are required. If you make the right cookies and present them properly, even the most unsettled of spirits will relax and return to their usual low-key haunting activities.

Makes: About 5 dozen – enough for 3-5 ghosts and at least 1 poltergeist

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter – room temperature (haunted rooms are sometimes colder so watch out for that, I mean a regular room)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup molasses
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 cups AP flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 black tea teabag
• 1 eye of newt

Directions:

1. Make a pot of tea. Everything is better with a pot of tea, and you are going to need all the help you can get. Also, 1/2 cup of the tea is going into the cookies so separate that out and set it aside to cool.
2. Gather your supplies – you will need a medium and large cauldron, the marker from a grave, your pointiest witch’s hat, and a pair of demon-resistant gloves. If you do not have these items handy, you can substitute a mixing bowl and the bowl of a stand-mixer, a cookie sheet lined with parchment, and oven mitts. The witch’s hat is non-negotiable.
3. In your large cauldron/stand mixer, combine butter (1 cup) and sugar (1 cup). Cream together, the sound of the mixer will help drown out the disembodied wailing coming from the other side of the room.
4. Add molasses (1 cup) and vanilla extract (1 tsp) and mix well.
5. In your medium cauldron/mixing bowl, combine flour (5 cups), baking soda (2 tsp), cinnamon (1 tsp), cloves (1/4 tsp), nutmeg (1/4 tsp), and salt (1/2 tsp). Stir together. Practice your best cackling while you do this, it goes with the hat.
6. Add the dry ingredients a third at a time to the butter mixture, alternating with 1/2 cup of cooled black tea. Don’t over mix, ghosts have delicate teeth and you do not want to have to bring in an undead dentist. Just stir enough to combine well.
7. Throw away the eye of newt, or give it to the black cat that you are pretty sure you didn’t have before you started cooking, and yet…
8. Wrap up the dough tightly and place it in the corner of your kitchen that is inexplicably ice-cold. If the cold spot is inconvenient, the fridge works too.
9. Let the dough sit for at least 1 hour. You can use this time to pick cobwebs out of your hair, carve a scary face in a pumpkin, or maybe cower in the corner and watch apparitions swoop around the room. Just make sure you take this time for you.
10. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees f.
11. Remove the dough from the cold spot, and put it on the counter. Shoe away any spiders or other creepy-crawlies that might appear, and try not to worry since they probably aren’t real.
12. Roll the dough out to just a little thicker than the veil between the living and the dead. Or about 1/4 inch if you prefer imperial measurements.
13. Cut the cookies into the shape of your choice – bats, ghosts, or just free-form them based on the mysterious glowing orbs you keep seeking out of the corner of your eye.
14. Bake for 6-8 minutes. 6 minutes will give you softer chewy cookies and 8 minutes will make them crispier.
15. Let cool on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes, then let cool the rest of the way on a wire rack.
16. Place the cookies on a pretty tray in the centre of your kitchen for easy access for the spirits. Repeat as needed until the creepy sounds subside.

Notes:

• This dough is stickier than the ectoplasm oozing out of your walls. Feel free to use plenty of flour when you are rolling it out, just brush off the excess from the cookies before you bake them.
• These cookies perfectly bridge the gap between pumpkin spice and gingerbread, so no need to stop making them once the haunting is resolved. Just use different cookie cutters (or don’t, there is nothing wrong with Christmas bats).