Skeleton Gingerbread Cookies

Crisp gingerbread come back from the dead for a delicious Halloween treat.

Skeleton Gingerbread Cookies

By Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

This month for Improv Cooking Challenge we had to come up with a recipe using Sugar & Spice.

Beyond the old nursery rhyme of :

Sugar & Spice and everything nice,

That’s what little girls are made of.

Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails-

That’s what little boys are made of.

I certainly have different ideas about Sugar & Spice—> and they are the perfect gingerbread cookies.

This recipe is actually the same recipe I use in my gingerbread reindeer cookies. It is fabulous enough that I now keep it as my Master Recipe, since I don’t see any further needed improvements.

I love having cookies such as those to decorate a tree- but if you want to do that make sure you use a toothpick to make a little hole for hanging thread before you bake them off, as afterward it is nearly impossible.

People like using gingerbread at Christmastide, but they are also popular now for Halloween trees, and also, just having for the kid in all of us to eat.

Back in the 1980’s when my daughter was young, I did a tree at Christmas with many gingerbread cookies, dried and sealed with polyurethane. Unfortunately I went to the market and while I was gone, the kid in all of us was also in my dog, who proceeded to help herself to those cookies, upending the tree and eating every one. I suppose even with the sealer, she could smell them. I worried most she might get sick from the paint, but she came out okay. Still, beware the dogs if you use these as ornaments. They smell wonderful to everyone, including the pets.

I also saw some of these done up as mummies, drizzling the icing over as if they were bandages. I would have done a few of those but thought they would look better if they had some of the colored candy eyes, as it would make white dots not very noticeable.

Either way you enjoy these, I hope you have fun making them!

Skeleton Gingerbread Cookies

Servings: 30
Time: 2hr 30mins
Difficulty: moderate
Print

Yield: 2-1/2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon table salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
6 ounces unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes
3/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons warm milk

To decorate:

Royal icing or White Wilton Cookie Icing

Method:

Sift together the flour, sugar, spices, salt and baking soda; place in a food processor and add butter chunks, pulsing after each addition until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
Stir molasses into warm milk to thin, then add it to the flour mixture, pulsing to form a smooth dough.
Turn dough out onto a lightly floured board; divide into four pieces.
Place pieces between parchment paper and roll out, then chill until firm (I use the freezer for 15-20 minutes).
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Cut out gingerbread boy shapes using cookie cutters and place on parchment paper or silpat lined baking sheets about one inch apart.
Save scraps to roll out again, chilling briefly if needed.
Bake cookies for about 18-20 minutes, or until cookies are firm, but do not overbake.
Cool cookies on the pans for 5-10 minutes then finish cooling on wire racks.
Ice cookies using royal icing or white Wilton cookie icing with an appropriate skeleton shape, as shown in photos. I recommend practicing a few first on a sheet of paper, using a minimal amount of icing so it doesn’t run or overfill (icing tends to spread as it dries).
Allow icing to harden before storing cookies (usually about an hour).