Halloween 'Skeleton' Sugar Cookies

Happy Halloween!!

What better opportunity to practice my piping skills (which are very rarely used), than making little one-bite cocoa 'skeleton' sugar cookies.  I wanted to make cocoa cookies so that the white 'bone' icing would show up better and originally I had the thought of making bigger 'people', but unfortunately when I searched through my cookie cutter collection the only one I could find was a small 1.5 inch size in a tin with other miniature Christmas cutters.  It works out really well though, because this way they're just the right size for little kids - okay, and big kids too!!

Cocoa Sugar Cookies
quantity depends entirely on size of cutter - I got around 120 cookies from a 1.5 inch cutter

2 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup butter (room temp)
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

• in a medium bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder.
• in a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar for about 3-4 minutes.
• add the eggs, one at a time, to the butter mixture.  Add the vanilla and combine well.
• add the flour mixture and blend until a smooth dough.
• divide the dough in half, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour.
• when you're ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 325 F, and position rack in the middle of the oven.
• line 2 cookie trays with parchment paper.
• roll half of the dough to 1/4 inch thickness on a floured surface, rotating the dough often to stop it from sticking.
• cut out desired shapes, and transfer to the cookie trays.  The scraps of dough can be re-rolled a second time to make more cookies.
• put the cookie trays into the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to firm up slightly. This will stop the cookies from spreading while they bake.
• bake for 10-12 minutes (depending on size). Cool on trays for a couple of minutes, and transfer to cooling racks.
• repeat with the second half of the dough.
• once cookies are completely cooled, pipe desire design onto each.

Icing for piping
this will give you around 1 1/5 cups of icing

1 large egg white
1 tsp lemon juice
2 cups icing sugar

• beat together the egg white and lemon juice just until beginning to froth.
• add the icing sugar and mix to a stiff, peaked consistency.
• either use a small piping bag and nozzle if you have one, or just as good is a small zip-loc bag with a small hole cut from one corner (make sure you don't cut the whole too big though :).
• pipe away!!!

 here come the cookies!!

you can sift the dry ingredients if you want, but I didn't and they came out fine.

flatten the dough into discs and they'll be easier to roll when they firm up.

 the dough can be quite fragile so work gently with it.

ready to be baked.

they kept their shape really well because of the firming up in the fridge beforehand.

let them cool completely before you pipe the icing.

mix the icing ingredients until stiff and shiny.

they were so tiny that I couldn't get too elaborate with the design.

Boo!!!