Fall is HERE and I have a FREEBIE for you!

Well, it's official. My favorite season has ended and the weather is starting to turn to rainy old gray skies (sigh!). To keep my spirits up I pulling out all the "rainy day" projects that you do indoors....sewing, crocheting and COOKING! I was looking through some old magazines that I picked up last year and "re-found" this recipe that I didn't get time then.

So, after we got back from the pumpkin patch yesterday we got busy with these cookies!!

(the weather was sooooo nice yesterday, so glad we went then! It's raining now!)

This recipe is for Night Owl Cookies and below I have a freebie recipe card if you'd like to have it. =) Click on the card to download it.

These are cute (for owls) and a great project to do with kids! =) I tried the recipe pretty much as written but didn't need near the amount of flour and cocoa as they suggested. It calls for the refrigerated pre-made sugar cookie dough, but your favorite recipe can substitue and my next batch with be Gluten-Free so my hubby can enjoy them too! =) It is torture for him if I'm cooking/baking something delicious and he can't eat it!

So, here we go. After mixing the flour and cocoa in this is what the log looks like....notice that flat edge on the bottom? That is the edge used to join the cookies! =) My white dough isn't perfectly centered because I overlapped the chocolate wrapper to make it a little thicker on one side for the owl face. Now the recipe says you can get 20 owl cookies, I got 14 so maybe my log was thicker than it was supposed to be or I cut them a little thicker (or both!). I actually like the size they are though.

I used thread to make the slices and they are pretty cute once assembled (again, for owls). =)

I even got creative and put oatmeal around the eyes to see how that would turn out!

Be sure to space them far enough apart. I'm so glad I did a test run! I don't normally use pre-made dough so I wasn't sure how much they would GROW when baked! YIKES!

I mean, seriously! This.....

became THAT! LOL!

You still can get 12 on a larger pan though! =)

Then it's just a matter of decorating with some chocolate and vanilla or cream cheese frosting!

Gotta add those M&M eyes too!

Then you end up with a pretty cute cookie that was easy to make!

Our little "owl family"! =)

I got this recipe from a magazine last year, but you can view the FULL RECIPE HERE!