Eyeball Cookies with Colored Dough

These Creepy Eyeball Cookies are made with colorful cookie dough inlays set into rich chocolate dough, then baked into hauntingly realistic eyeballs. Easy, fun, and perfect for a Halloween dessert table.

Black stone tray with stacked colorful eye cookies.

COLORED DOUGH CREEPY EYEBALL COOKIES STEP-BY-STEP

If the cookie worms in the next picture stopped you in your tracks and you want to make a creepy eyeball & cookie maggots medley, follow my tutorial on how to make cookie maggots.

Cookies shaped into snakes and colorful cookies resembling eyeballs on a black cloth.

THINGS YOU NEED

Get all the tools and supplies in Haniela’s Amazon Shop
Candy Corn Cookie Cutter,
Round Cookie Cutters:
1.75-inch (4.5 cm) – sclera round, cookie dough with red sprinkles
1-inch (2.5 cm) – iris round, green and blue cookie dough
3/8-inch (1 cm) or less – pupil round, black cookie dough
Gel Food Coloring: green, blue, black
Red Jimmies Sprinkles
Perforated Baking Mat
Baking Sheet
Flat Spatula
1/4-inch rolling guides

This post contains Amazon affiliate links that earn me a small commission, at no cost to you. I only recommend products that I use and love. Learn more about my affiliate policy here.

PREPARE CHOCOLATE AND VANILLA COLORED COOKIE DOUGH

To make the eye cookies with colored cookie dough, you’ll need two cookie doughs: vanilla (or other flavor) of uncolored dough and a chocolate dough. I use both of these cookie doughs to make mini tart shells. They don’t spread much in baking and are perfect for this project.

Vanilla Cookie Dough
Chocolate Cookie Dough

DIVIDE AND COLOR VANILLA DOUGH

Prepare the uncolored cookie dough and divide the dough into portions:
Sclera – 1/2 of the dough
Blue and Green Iris – use a little over 1/3 of the remaining half, for each color
Pupil – remaining dough

Sclera (white part of the eye) with Red Veins
To make the sclera with red blood veins, add red Jimmies sprinkles to the dough. If you don’t have Jimmies sprinkles you could also use red nonpareils.
Gently knead the sprinkles into a freshly made dough (steps 1-6).

Hand kneading red sprinkles into a cookie dough.

Blue and Green Iris of an Eye
Divide 2/3s of 1/2 of the dough (step 1).
To make a bright green iris, I ended up adding a touch of yellow to the leaf green food coloring (steps 2-4).
And to make the blue dough, I used royal blue food coloring.
It’s best to color cookie dough when it’s freshly made and soft. Once the dough is chilled, it’s difficult to knead the color into the dough.

Hands kneading gel colors into the cookie doughs.

Black Pupil of the Eye
Use the remaining little less than 1/3 of the dough from one half of the dough.
To make the pupil of the eye, that’s the black part of the eye, you can color your cookie dough with black food coloring (steps 1-5).
If you prefer, you could also use some of the brown cookie dough that we’re going to use for the base of this project.

ROLL OUT COLORED COOKIE DOUGHS

Use 1/4-inch (6mm) rolling guides on each side of the cookie dough (step 1).
Roll the pieces of dough between two sheets of parchment (steps 2-8).
Chill the sheets of dough for about an hour or so.

Sheet of colored, rolled out cookie dough.

MAKE THE EYEBALL INLAYS

You need 3 round cookie cutters:
1.75-inch (4.5cm) – sclera round, cookie dough with red sprinkles
1-inch (2.5cm) – iris round, green and blue cookie dough
3/8-inch (1 cm) or less – pupil round, black cookie dough
To make the eyeball inlays, cut out rounds from each colored dough (steps 1-8).
Use the back of a wooden spoon to gently push out a small piece of black dough if it gets stuck inside the cutter (step 7).

Cutting out small rounds from colored cookie doughs.

Layer 3 colored round to form an eyeball design.
It’s best to work with chilled cookie dough rounds.
1. Using the iris cookie cutter (1-inch, 2.5 cm), cut out rounds from all of the sclera rounds. You’ll be left with a ring of white cookie dough with red specks (steps 1-2).
2. Pick up a piece of iris round (blue or green) and carefully place it into the sclera ring. Gently push it in (steps 3-4).
3. Using the pupil cookie cutter (3/8-inch, 1 cm or less), cut out rounds from the iris rounds -this is the blue round you just inserted into the sclera/white ring in the previous step. Use the back of a wooden spoon to push out the dough from the cutter if it gets stuck. You’ll be left with a small hole in the middle of the blue round (steps 5-6).
Pick up a black round and insert it into the hole to seal it (step 7).
Repeat to make 20 + eyeball inlays (step 8). Chill for 5-10 minutes before assembling the final layer.

Layering colored cookie doughs to form an eyeball pattern.

CHOCOLATE BASE LAYER

Prepared one batch of chocolate cookie dough.
Roll it out to 1/4-inch thick and chill until firm, about an hour (steps 1-8).

A sheet of rolled out chocolate cookie dough.

INSERT THE EYEBALLS INTO THE CHOCOLATE LAYER

Cut out rounds from a chocolate sheet using the same cutter (1.75-inch, 4.5 cm) you used to cut out white-sclera rounds (steps 1-5).
Carefully insert eyeball inlays into the openings (steps 6-8).

Placing round cookies into the cut out sections on a sheet of cookie dough.

Place 1/4 – inch rolling guides on the sides of the eyeball sheet.
Cover the eyeball pattern layer with parchment or a silicone mat.
Run a rolling pin across to make sure that everything is even. If there are any gaps, they’re going to be filled with just a little push of a rolling pin.
You don’t want to press on it too hard, though, because it can misshape the eyeball pattern (steps 1-4).
I used a candy corn cookie cutter to cut out as many cookies as possible (steps 5-6).

A sheet of chocolate cookie dough with an eye inlay pattern.

CUT THE COOKIES AND BAKE

Carefully transfer cookies onto a baking sheet. Use a flat spatula to help you carry cookies from the rolling mat to a baking sheet (steps 1-3).
Lay them down onto a baking sheet lined with a perforated mat or a parchment sheet (steps 4-6).
Bake cookies at 350°F (180°C) for about 9 to 11 minutes. Bake them until they’re just puffy in the middle. If they are still wet-looking in the middle, you need to bake them for an additional minute.
Allow to cool on a baking sheet for a couple of minutes. Then transfer cookies onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
Cookies will keep for about 2 weeks in an airtight container

Cut out cookies with eye pattern on a baking sheet.

Pair the creepy eyeball cookies with edible cookie maggots for a gross enough to scare and delicious to devour Halloween treat!

VIDEO TUTORIAL

Do you want to stay updated about free cookie decorating tutorials, live events, classes, and products? Sign up for Hani’s Cookie Decorating Newsletter.