How to Make Skeleton Sugar Cookies – 13 Days of Halloween Cookie Decorating
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We are about halfway through our 13 Days of Halloween cookie decorating tutorials! For Day 7, I have a tutorial for how to decorate skeleton sugar cookies.
These creeping skeleton cookies may look intimidating with all the little bones, but it’s just some easy line & dot work. I have included both a video and step-by-step photo series tutorial.
Make these Halloween skeleton sugar cookies with tasty buttercream frosting for your Halloween party and your guests will not be disappointed.
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Part 1: Gathering the Supplies for the Skeleton Sugar Cookies
To make these decorated buttercream skeleton cookies for your Halloween party, you will want to gather:
- 2 Icing bags
- 1 Coupler
- Wilton #1, #2, and #5 tip sizes – buy these individually at a bake supply store or purchase this kit
- Gingerbread man cookie cutter – I used the one in this set
- Wilton black gel food dye, I’ve found the best price at Walmart
- Palette knife or 9″ Angled flat spatula
- Ingredients for a crusting buttercream, find my crusting buttercream icing recipe here
- Ingredients for sugar cookie dough, find my no spread sugar cookies recipe here
- I’m using my espresso chip recipe in this tutorial which is coming soon to you!
Part 2: Baking the Cookies and Setting up Your Icing Bags
- Roll, cut out, and bake your sugar cookies according to the recipe. You will be able to make about 24 sugar cookies with the cookie cutter & recipes linked above.
- Make your buttercream icing and take out one & a half cups of frosting and place that into an icing bag with the tip #2 in it.
- Color the remaining frosting (what is left in the mixer) black. Remember, the color will deepen as it dries, so aim for a dark gray/light black shade.
- Fill the other icing bag set up with a coupler with the black frosting.
- If you don’t know how to set up icing bags with/without couplers, just hop over to my Getting Started: Learn How to Decorate Buttercream Cookies page for a detailed explanation.
Part 3: The Tutorial for How to Make Skeleton Sugar Cookies
Check out the video here to see how to decorate skeleton cookies for Halloween. Then, check out the breakdown step-by-step photo series tutorial below.
- Attach the Wilton tip #5 to the black frosting and outline & fill in the cookie.
- Using the palette knife or angled flat spatula, smooth the black frosting.
- Use the white frosting, with tip #2 in the icing bag, to outline and fill in the skeleton’s head. Aim for a balloon shape with an extra dot in the middle of where the balloon ties would be (this will be the skeleton’s chin.) Use the same white frosting for steps 4-7 as well.
- Draw lines to represent the collar bone, rib cage, and arms. The collar bone line will be slightly curved upward.
- Draw the skeleton’s hip bones by creating a bow shape, then fill it in.
- Draw the skeleton’s leg bones and feet.
- Squeeze out two small dots on each side of the bones except for those bones making up the rib cage.
- Remove the tip #3 from the black frosting and replace it with the tip #1. Draw two small circles for the eyes and an upside down heart for the nose. Pipe out a zig zag line for the mouth.
- Lastly, pipe out a smaller bow shape for the holes in the hip bones.
I named these skeleton sugar cookies “creeping skeleton cookies” because they kind of look like they are creeping up on you. To present these fun buttercream decorated cookies, arrange them onto a dark plate or food safe paper. You can add little lights & even a skeleton hand to really add in the Halloween fun.
You can find the food safe paper that I used in these photos here:
Save the Tutorial for How to Make Skeleton Sugar Cookies
Use the image below to pin this Halloween cookie decorating tutorial to your Halloween party board on Pinterest. Alternatively, use any of the social share icons on the top of the page to share it to your favorite social media site.
Wow, these cookies are so much fun and easy to decorate. Glad to have something different than a pumpkin.
Yes, it is fun to switch things up, especially on such a creative holiday as Halloween!