Just because it is October does not mean that you cannot put your gingerbread men cookie cutters to use! I don’t make rolled or decorated cookies very often, but when I saw cookies similar to these ones on Pinterest, I just had to try! I love the idea of putting a spin on the traditional gingerbread man cookie that is commonly associated with Christmas. These skeleton cookies are made of a chocolate sugar cookie dough and decorated with store bought vanilla icing and mini M&Ms ??.
I bet you there are thousands of different sugar cookie recipes out these, however, many of them are vanilla and not chocolate. You can definitely use a vanilla sugar cookie dough and then pipe vanilla or chocolate frosting onto them, but I like using a chocolate cookie base to give more contrast to the treat ?.
Searching all over the web to find a good rolled chocolate sugar cookie recipe was a bit tough as most recipes yielded puffy cake-like cookies or cookies that are meant to be dropped onto a baking sheet, not rolled and shaped. The recipe that I use yields a dough that is easy to work with, resulting in uniform cookies that maintain their shape while baking. Thanks to the melted chocolate in the cookie dough, these cookies have a rich shortbread like taste while still maintaining a bit of sugar cookie chew ?.
These cookies are pretty easy to decorate; as long as you have a plastic bag and a steady hand, you will have wonderful skeleton cookies in no time! If frosting skeleton bones is a bit to difficult, feel free to zig zag the frosting across the cookies, creating a mummy-like effect.
Decorating the cookies with M&Ms will make them super cute, but you could also use a different frosting to create the eyes and any other features you have in mind! You could even use a green frosting and dip the cookies in it to make a frankenstein/zombie cookie.
Without further ado, here is the recipe for the cookies as well as decorating instructions; I hope you give these a try and love them as much as I do!
- 2⅓ cups all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup cocoa powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup soft butter
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 6 oz melted bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
- Store bought vanilla frosting or homemade royal icing
- M&Ms or any candies of your choice
- Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy and beat in the room temperature eggs one at a time. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.Add the vanilla and while the mixer is running, drizzle in the melted chocolate, blending until everything is uniform and smooth.
- Dump in the dry ingredients and use a spatula to fold everything together into a dough.
- Divide the dough into two pieces and place each half of the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap, forming it into a disk, wrapping it up and placing it into the fridge to chill for about an hour.
- When you are ready to cake the cookies, take the dough out of the fridge and let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes, then roll the dough out to about ½ a centimeter or ¾ a centimeter onto a floured surface.
- Cut out the cookies, place them on a baking sheet and bake them for 10-15 minutes, until they are slightly puffed and set around the edges.
- Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool, then begin frosting them by filling a plastic bag with icing to decorate the cookies.
- For the skeleton design, pipe a big blob of frosting on the face of the gingerbread man, then draw thin lines along the rib cage, arms and legs. For a mummy design, simply zig zag the icing across the cookies.
- Once you are done frosting them, stick the candy on the cookies before the icing has a chance to dry/harden completely. After this step, you can finally devour them!
-Chewy
These are super cute! Perfect for Halloween :). Pinned!
Aww thank you Annie ❤️
These look adorable, Angela! And so creative I would not have thought to use a gingerbread man. I’m going to a Halloween potluck, and these sound like the perfect treat. 🙂
I’m glad that you like them! I hope you do bring them to the potluck, have fun!!! ?