Skeleton Cookies
I love a decorated cookie and I am so obsessed with these skeletons! I’ve also included a less technical mummy option (really I just got tired of piping skeletons lol).
What you’ll need for the cookies:
– 1 stick butter, room temp (4 oz)
– 3/4 cup white sugar (150g)
– 1/4 cup brown sugar (50g)
– 1 egg
– 1 teaspoon vanilla
– 1/8 teaspoon almond extract
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
– 1 1/2 cups flour (180g)
– 1 Tablespoon milk
– 1/4 cup cocoa powder (20g)
What you’ll need for the icing:
– 1 teaspoon meringue powder
– 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
– 1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon water
What you’ll need for decorating:
– 3inch gingerbread man cutter
– Piping bag
– #1 tip
– Candy eyes, optional if doing mummy design
What you’ll do:
– Cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
– Add egg, vanilla, almond extract, and salt and beat until thoroughly incorporated.
– Mix in half the amount of flour until most of the flour has been incorporated, then mix in the milk.
– Mix in the remaining amount of flour, being sure to scrape the bottom to incorporate any flour that’s stuck to the bottom of the bowl.
– Form your dough into a disc that is about 1/2 inch thick and wrap with plastic wrap. Chill the dough for a couple hours until fully chilled or overnight.
– Saving the plastic wrap, place your unwrapped dough on top of a piece of parchment and then place your plastic wrap clean side up atop of the dough disc (this will prevent the dough from sticking to your rolling pin).
– Roll your dough out so that it is a quarter of an inch thick. Every few rolls, make sure that you can lift your dough off the surface.
– Use a cookie cutter to cut out desired shapes, rerolling out the dough when needed and keeping any unused dough in the refrigerator.
– Place cut out shapes on a lined baking sheet and place in the freezer while you preheat your oven to 350F.
– Bake your cookies for 10 minutes (they won’t change too much in color so you won’t be looking for visual cues like you normally would). Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool before doing any desired decorations.
– While your cookies are cooling, making your icing by adding all the ingredients to a bowl and whisk until lump free. You want your icing to be a bit stiff so you may need to add a bit more powdered sugar if it’s a bit runny.
– Transfer some of your icing to a piping bag fitting with #1 tip. Pipe your icing on the cooled cookies to resemble either a skeleton or a mummy.
– Allow your icing to set and ENJOY!
A few notes:
– I did not use powdered sugar when rolling out my dough because I did not want to run the risk of it causing any discoloration on the dark cookie.
– Check out this Instagram Reel for a video of me piping the skeleton design!