Sugar Skull Owls for Halloween

This year for Halloween I wanted to do a cookie that was a little less traditional.  I've done skulls and spiders and mummies and things like that in the past.  At first I wanted to do a whole bunch of decorative owls, almost look like they were made of cut paper possibly in Halloween colors like oranges and purples.  Then I really wanted to do sugar skulls, but I feel like everybody is doing sugar skulls now.  Then the thought came to me to do a very decorative sugar skull inspired owl design.  I used a chocolate sugar cookie base to really make the design pop on the cookie and I couldn't be happier with the results.  They're something a little different than what I normally see for Halloween cookies and that's exactly what I was going for.  And like always, they're gluten free.  If you want to make these too, here's what you're going to need.

Sugar Skull Owls for Halloween

Decorating level: Advanced
Concept, design, and execution by Jesika Rose

• Gluten Free Chocolate Sugar Dough Recipe
• Royal Icing Recipe
• 4" round cookie cutter
• 12 Decorating bags, couplers, tips, and rubber bands
• Two #3 round tips
• Nine #2 round tips
• Two #1 round tips 
• Toothpicks
• Gel food coloring:
• Regal purple (or Violet with a dash of Fushia)
• Lemon Yellow
• Leaf or Neon Green
• Sky Blue
• Deep Pink
• Orange

Go-To Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Right now I'm working on two decorating projects that I plan to also do tutorials for.  Both designs involve lightly colored icing or white icing for the base color.  I really want these designs to pop though, and those colors can sometimes look bland on a regular sugar cookie.  So I really wanted to find the perfect chocolate sugar dough recipe to give these cookies some contrast.  After looking at at least a dozen recipes, I decided this recipe by Georganne at LilaLoa appealed to me the most.  Nice crisp shapes, and tons of raving reviews about how delicious they are. 

So I converted it to be gluten free and I was not disappointed!  Great, rich chocolate flavor and with the help of just three-four drops of black dye the perfect contrast color I was looking for (don't worry! that little dye does not give it a bitter taste).  They roll out great and they hold their shape perfectly.  They seem like the perfect ground for decorating, and they're also great plain or just sprinkled with a little bit of sugar.  So if you don't want to go all out with royal icing decorating, even using a cute cutter and just sanding them with sugar will make a delicious treat.

This will be your go-to chocolate sugar dough.  And I dare you to not sneak any bites of this raw!  That is just how delicious it is.

As with most sugar dough, you need to let this dough rest.  When you're done mixing it will be very sticky and soft.  Georganne suggests if you need to use it right away add 1/2 cup more flour.  While I did not try this, if you need to go with more brown rice or sorghum flour.  I did not try this with gluten free flours though so it may not work the same as with wheat flour.  If you try the extra flour and it works let me know!  Otherwise just a few hours in the fridge will make it the perfect texture for rolling out without any problems with it being too soft or stick

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

Recipe adapted from LilaLoa
Makes about 1 1/2 dozen 4" cookies
Print Recipe

Ingredients

- 1 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla, gluten free
- 1 tsp salt
- 3/4 tsp baking powder, gluten free
- 2/3 cup non dutch-processed cocoa, I used Hershey's
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 1 cup sorghum flour
- 2/3 cup tapioca flour
- 1/3 cup white rice flour
- 3/4 tsp xanthan gum
- Black gel dye, optional

Ocean Themed Decorated Sugar Cookies

A few weeks back I decided to have some fun after work and make some ocean themed sugar cookies.  I hadn't decorated in a while and missed it...so I picked up some new cookie cutters along with some marine ones I already have and decorated cookies of my other great passion, marine animals and the ocean.  I had so much fun doing this cookies.  Especially the octopus and the whale which I designed myself on a round cookie (I wasn't liking the whale cutters I found and I didn't have an octopus).