Mexican Hot Chocolate Sugar Skull Cookies #Choctoberfest


*Disclosure: I received product to sample from ­­­­­Sprinkle Pop.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.


It’s the final day of #choctoberfest and I decided to continue the Dia de los Muetros celebration I started a couple weeks ago when I made Pan de Muertos (Bread of the Dead).

I’ve made Sugar Skull Cookies for the past couple years, taking the time to pipe all of the details by hand with royal icing.  The cookies are gorgeous, but incredibly time consuming.  This year, with a full load of graduate school classes in addition to my job as a school librarian, plus being room mom for both of my kids’ classes, I just didn’t know when I was going to have the time to make my skulls.  And my boys were already asking if I was going to make Halloween cookies for their friends this year.



Then I got my sprinkles of Sprinkle Pop and I knew that their stunningly beautiful Dia de los Muertos mix was going to be the answer to my prayers!


Sprinkle Pop had a stunning variety of sprinkles available, plus they’ll create custom sprinkle blends, dyed in house to match absolutely anything you can dream up!

As I was choosing sprinkles, I had fall on the mind, so I chose fall leaf sprinkles and the Dia de los Muertos mix, knowing I would use them for #choctoberfest.  But I also got Sea Glass in all its oceanic gorgeousness – I’m still deciding how I want to use them…I’m thinking Christmas, since it almost reminds me of icicles.


Be sure to check out Sprinkle Pop on social media below and don’t forget to hop over there to check out the amazing prize pack and to enter the giveaway!


Back to those cookies.

Since it’s Choctoberfest, I obviously was going to make a chocolate cookie, and since I was making sugar skulls, I wanted to make something inspired by Mexican Hot Chocolate – with its fabulous blend of spices!

So I took my favorite chocolate roll out cookie recipe, added some cinnamon and chili (a very very tiny amount of chili, in this case, since I’m planning on serving them to kids.  Feel free to play with the recipe and add more if you’d really like a kick of spice) and got to baking!

For the decoration, I started out with wet on wet royal icing (but I think you can really use any of your favorite frosting recipes here), then added leaf sprinkles and Dia de los Muertos blend to add detail to the skulls.   I saved the mini sugar skulls that came in the blend for my round cookies and coated them with sprinkles!  I love them!



Mexican Hot Chocolate Sugar Skull Cookies
Recipe adapted from LilaLoa

½ cup butter, softened
2 tablespoons shortening
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon salt
3/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 ½ cups all purpose flour

Sprinkles


Place the butter, shortening and sugar in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Beat until light and fluffy.

Add the egg, vanilla, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and cayenne and mix until well combined.

Add the cocoa, stirring until completely incorporated.

Finally, add the flour, ½ cup at a time, mixing until completely combined.

Scoop the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap.  Wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and line baking sheets with parchment of silicone mats.

Roll the dough out on a heavily floured mat.  Cut out cookie shapes and bake for 10-12 minutes.  Cool on wire racks.

Frost cookies with royal icing and decorate with Sprinkle Pop sprinkles.



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