For the Love of Cookies

Dia de los Muertos is huge in Mexico and contrary to what happens in Brazil (we celebrate on the same day), in Mexico the festivities have a happy atmosphere. Colors, lots of colors are always present, and funny stories are shared about those family members who are not with us any longer. It is more a celebration than mourning. Today I share two styles of cookies made by two of my favorite cookie artists. They are intermediate to advanced in technique, simply because you’ll need to master those fine lines…..

DESIGN #1
MARLYN’S SKULL FLOWER

You will need to bake two separate cookies to make these adorable/scary flowers. I used this mold to get the skulls, froze the cookie dough in the mold for 10 minutes, un-molded ad baked from frozen. Then the skull is iced with very thin white Royal icing, and air-brushed with two colors, I used purple and yellow. Once that sets, the fine lines are added. The whole tutorial is available if you are a member of Marlyn’s Patreon site (click here to join). Below some of the steps involved.

Once that is all done, you can ice the flower-shaped cookie, and add the skull on top. Marlyn’s version was more elaborate, but I could not make it work like she did, so I simplified mine.

DESIGN #2
HANIELA’S COLORFUL SKULLS

Aren’t those super cool? You start with a cupcake cookie cutter, so this is actually a cookie-cutter-flip! They were part of a Facebook live and you can watch the whole thing here. It starts with airbrushing the facial details over a fully set white icing. Then the fine lines…. My final addition to these cookies was airbrushing the edges with Taupe color to “age” them.

If you don’t own an airbrush machine, you can still paint the details by hand and also brush some luster powder around the edges, for a similar look.

ONE YEAR AGO: Two Spooky Cookie Projects

TWO YEARS AGO: A Fairy Cottage Cookie Composition