Halloween Gingerbread Men Skeletons
These Halloween Gingerbread Men Skeletons are chocolate gingerbread cookies made with black cocoa powder and decorated with white royal icing to look like little skeletons. The dough chills overnight, so they're easy to make ahead and perfect for Halloween!
Servings: 15 cookies
Calories: 222kcal
Equipment
- 2x cookie trays
- 1x disposable piping bag
- 1x decorating nozzle
Ingredients
Chocolate Gingerbread Men
- 225 g cake flour
- 75 g black cocoa powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 90 g unsalted butter
- 70 g muscovado sugar
- 1 egg extra large
- 60 g molasses
Royal Icing
- 1 egg white
- ½ teaspoon lemon juice
- 300 g icing sugar
Instructions
Chocolate Gingerbread Men
- Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt into a medium bowl.
- Add the butter and muscovado to a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Cream at medium speed until light and fluffy.
- Add the molasses and the egg to the butter and sugar mixture. Beat to combine, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat again.
- With the mixer running at a slow speed, add the flour mixture one spoonful at a time. Once added, scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again.
- Wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F), then roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to the thickness of ½ cm ( ¼ inch) using a rolling pin. Use gingerbread-shaped cookie cutters to cut out the dough into about 15 gingerbread men. Place them onto an oven tray, spacing them adequately.
- Bake in a preheated oven for 10 – 15 minutes. Once baked, leave them to cool on a wire rack before decorating.
Royal Icing Decoration
- Add the egg white and lemon juice to a bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat until combined.
- Slowly add the icing sugar to the mixture while the mixer is running at medium speed. Once it has all been added, scrape down the sides of the bowl and mix again until stiff peaks form. Add the mixture to a piping bag fitted with a small round decorating nozzle.
- Pipe a skeleton design onto the cooled cookies.
- Once all the cookies are decorated, place them back onto an oven tray and place the tray into a preheated oven set at 100°C (210°F) for 10 minutes to bake and set the royal icing. Cool on a wire rack, serve, and enjoy!
Notes
- Baking the cookies again after decorating is optional; it not only cooks the egg whites if you are worried about using raw eggs, but also hardens the royal icing faster.
Nutrition
Calories: 222kcal | Carbohydrates: 42g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 24mg | Sodium: 128mg | Potassium: 167mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 27g | Vitamin A: 167IU | Vitamin C: 0.1mg | Calcium: 26mg | Iron: 1mg
