Description
Celebrate the vibrant and spirited Day of the Dead festival with these colorful and festive Day Of The Dead Cookies. This recipe features tender, buttery sugar cookies shaped like skulls and beautifully decorated with bright, glossy royal icing in traditional Day of the Dead colors. Perfect for sharing during the holiday or as a fun baking activity, these cookies bring both flavor and festive charm to your celebration.
Ingredients
Scale
For the Cookies:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 Tbsp milk
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
For the Icing:
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 6 Tbsp milk, plus more for thinning
- 1/4 cup light corn syrup
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
- Black food coloring
- Teal food coloring
- Orange food coloring
- Green food coloring
- Purple food coloring
- Yellow food coloring
Instructions
- Mix dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, and kosher salt until well combined and set aside.
- Cream butter and sugar: In another large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together until fluffy and pale in color using a mixer. Add the egg, milk, and vanilla extract, and beat until fully combined.
- Combine and chill dough: Gradually incorporate the flour mixture into the wet ingredients until the dough is fully combined. Shape the dough into a disk, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour to firm up.
- Preheat and roll dough: When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Lightly flour a clean work surface and roll out the chilled dough to about 1/8 inch thickness. Use a skull-shaped cookie cutter to cut out shapes and transfer them to the baking sheets. Freeze the cut cookies for 10 minutes to help them hold their shape during baking.
- Bake cookies: Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the edges turn lightly golden. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool completely on a wire rack.
- Prepare icing base: While the cookies cool, make the icing by combining powdered sugar, milk, light corn syrup, and vanilla extract in a medium bowl until smooth. Place about one-quarter of the icing into a piping bag with a small round tip; this will be used to outline the cookies.
- Flood cookies: Thin about half of the remaining icing with milk, one teaspoon at a time, to reach a consistency suitable for flooding. Transfer this to another piping bag with a small round tip and carefully fill the centers of the cookies.
- Color the icing: Divide the remaining icing into six small bowls and tint each with a different food coloring: black, teal, orange, green, purple, and yellow.
- Decorate cookies: Place each colored icing into separate piping bags fitted with small round tips. Use these to pipe decorative faces and intricate designs onto the flooded cookies to resemble traditional Day of the Dead skull decorations.
Notes
- Chilling the dough and freezing cut cookies before baking helps maintain sharp cookie shapes and prevents spreading.
- If the iced cookies stick to your hands when decorating, let the icing dry slightly before continuing to add additional layers.
- Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days to keep them fresh.
- Use gel food colorings for brighter, more vibrant icing colors without thinning the icing too much.
- Adjust milk quantity gradually when thinning icing to prevent overly runny consistency.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cookie
- Calories: 180
- Sugar: 15g
- Sodium: 85mg
- Fat: 9g
- Saturated Fat: 5g
- Unsaturated Fat: 3g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 23g
- Fiber: 0.5g
- Protein: 2g
- Cholesterol: 35mg
