Halloween Gingerbread Men

Oh hey, it's me Alicia. I decided to do a post.

So, as you can tell we love Christmas in my family.

But since it has not even been Halloween yet, people are not really keen on the mentioning of Christmas. So, alas, Christmas-lovers like ourselves must hide our love or endure endless scorn. ;)

So, if you are like us, and love Christmas I have a treat that will please both types of people in your life.

Yesterday I had a craving for gingerbread. I used to hate it when I was little but I love it now.

An obstacle I had was I had no molasses, so I decided to look in my Winnie the Pooh Cookbook my Mom got me for Christmas.  All the recipes use honey, and I knew that would work well for me, because I have honey.

Sorry, I did not take pictures of the process, but this post is more about the decorating than the cookies. So find your favorite gingerbread cookie recipe and mix that up.

Make sure to refrigerate your dough for at least an hour.  After its chilled, it's time to cut it out. And that's where I had to be creative. I couldn't find my Halloween cookie cutters except a bat. So I made some gingerbread bat cookies.

Then I had to get creative. I used my gingerbread man cookie cutter to cut out some men. I decided to make them mummies! They turned out pretty cute. I like how there are gaps in the "wrapping" because I think it makes them look really old and raggedy like a mummy should look.

When I was transferring my cookies to the pan, one of their heads became detached, which led to two more ideas for cookies. I re-attached  the head but it then looked square. Perfect shape for a Frankenstein Monster! I can just see him singing "Puttin' on the Ritz."

My last idea was to make little Headless Horsemen, the terror of Sleepy Hallow. To do this, I just used the gingerbread man cookie cutter along the edge of my dough, leaving the head part off the dough. After I had already done this, and baked them, I realized I should have cut them out with the heads and then used a knife to cut their heads off and put it on the hand. I could have decorated it like the pumpkin he throws at people. Oh well, you will have to try that and tell me how it goes. I did put red around their necks, is it blood? Or is it just an ascot type thing? You decide...

Of course he wouldn't be a horseman without a horse. (Although my husband thinks it looks like a sheep.)

To decorate these cookies I used cream cheese frosting. It goes great with the spices in the cookies!

Here's some hints  on getting the colors I used:

• Dark Brown/Black- Add coco powder until you achieve the chocolate flavor you like. Then add lots of purple food coloring. I had the Kroger Neon Food Coloring bottles which comes with a purple color. I also put some blue in there. I also had started with a kind of orangey-brown color, from mixing 7 drops of hot pink, 5 drops of yellow, and 2 drops of green. But I think just adding purple to your chocolate frosting will work as well.
• Green- I mixed about 10 drops of the neon green food coloring with 3 drops of regular green into about a cup of white frosting.
• Purple- I used the neon purple coloring, about 5 drops to achieve that depth of color in about a cup or so of white frosting.
• Red- Ok Red is the hardest, we all know. Unless you have the fancy kind of food coloring getting RED red is basically impossible. It is more interesting when you don't even have red (like I didn't). So I'm pretty proud of the red I came up with. I started with that same orangey-brown and added a little bit of the chocolate frosting (just a dab). Then I added more yellow and hot pink. Then I added a lot more hot pink. And then to finally balance it out I added some purple, not a lot. But purple has a red component so I figured it would work. And it did! Sorry getting the red was a big experiment so I do not have measurements for you.
  

So you're probably saying to yourself, "Ok but why gingerbread? Why not just regular sugar cookies?"

Fair point, but there's just something about the spiciness of the gingerbread that works really well for the fall and Halloween. This cookie bites you back! (But in a sweet way). And if you think the chocolate and gingerbread is weird...It actually tastes really good together! Especially since it's cream cheese frosting.

And the best reason is, it reminds the eater that Christmas is coming soon. ;)