| Level: | Intermediate |
| Total: | 4 hr 45 min |
| Active: | 45 min |
| Yield: | about 14 cookies |
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 1 tablespoon meringue powder
- 1 to 2 tablespoons water
Instructions
- Make the cookies: Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Beat the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl with a mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until creamy, 1 to 2 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to low. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat until combined, about 2 minutes. Divide the dough in half; pat each piece into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, 1 hour.
- Roll out each dough disk between 2 sheets of parchment paper until 1/4 inch thick. Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.
- Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Cut the dough into shapes using a 4 1/2-inch gingerbread man cookie cutter and arrange 2 inches apart on the prepared pans. Reroll the scraps and cut out more cookies. (If the dough is too soft, freeze 10 minutes before cutting.) Refrigerate until firm, 15 minutes. Bake, switching the pans halfway through, until the cookies are set but still soft, 15 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes on the pans, then transfer to racks to cool completely.
- Make the icing: Beat the confectioners’ sugar, meringue powder and water in a bowl with a mixer on high speed until smooth and thick. Transfer to a resealable plastic bag and snip off a corner. Pipe skulls and bones onto the cookies. Let set 30 minutes.
- To decorate the cookies, first make the outline of the skull, eyes, nose, mouth and bones. Then thin some icing with a little water and pipe into the outline of the skull; use a toothpick to help.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 14 servings |
| Calories | 325 |
| Total Fat | 14 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Carbohydrates | 50 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Sugar | 34 g |
| Protein | 3 g |
| Cholesterol | 48 mg |
| Sodium | 168 mg |
Reviews
Flavour is good, but the cookies don’t maintain their shape in the oven. It’s as though they melt into one another. This is the second time this happens to me when using Dutch-processed cocoa. Also they are too sweet.
The cookies are absolutely delicious! Our skeleton design looked nothing like the picture, but what my family lacks in style we make up for in humerus jokes. Nothing beats laughing with your kids in the kitchen while comparing your wonky skeleton to the professionally done ones. Have fun!
We ended up with fat skeletons because no mom has time for that much chilling!! But otherwise these were awesome. Children and husband approved.
The flavor of this cookie dough is so tasty. I added 1/16th of a tsp. of ginger which gave it a slight spice in the back of the tongue. It worked for me like any cookie drough should; mix it, refridgerate, warm up a bit, roll out, cut, chill, back. Delicious! Will keep this recipe and use again.
The cookies are okay; the combination of cocoa and cinnamon is very good but the time outlined for them to be kept in the fridge made the dough very hard to work with. Also, the amount of water allocated for the frosting was too small; more was needed. The skeleton decorating was VERY difficult.