If you’ve been here a while you know I love to bake from scratch just as much as I enjoy doctoring up a box, or in this case, bag! TBH, the main reason I used a bag for this one is that gingerbread cookies aren’t a huge hit in my house, but when I saw the gingerdead trend floating around social media for all of us spooky dark hearts, I knew I had to put a First We Haunted Mansion spin on it.
I always have to get a box of these assorted spooky edible baking decor every spooky season- I have used them countless times in the last few months and still have so many!
But surprisingly I didn’t have gingerbread cookie cutters- oh well, just another excuse to head to the craft store!
For any type of cutout cookies, sugar or ginger, I always recommend refrigeration for at least 15 mins before rolling and cutting. These were extra sticky- much more so than my homemade sugar cookies, so I recommend having plenty of flour on hand- you’ll need it!
Bake for 9 mins at 350! I’ll be honest, they turned out a little too puffy for me- so I started over with the second batch. Those were a bit better, but still needed some trimming, so to speak. It doesn’t always work out without crumbling the cookie, but if you get them right out of the oven and notice they are too large right away, take the cookie cutter to them again to trim away the chunk!
I used black icing and red decorating gel- the red and green glitter icing I purchased previously was just too darn cheery for what was about to happen…
This one was a happy accident! I dropped him on the table, fresh out of the oven and he severed way too perfectly to become just another practice cookie. After all, life is what you make of it…
Initially, I wasn’t quite sure where I wanted to go with this one- I just knew I wanted it to involve dinos and mayhem. Once I got the set up arranged, it just kind of took off.
The buttons are actual icing and the eyeball on each gingy is secured with said icing. While it’s a bit more challenging to see in pics as red and black are both dark, the blood is a red decorative gel. Gelatinous and yummy! (But seriously anything is better than fondant)
Moral of the story: Dinosaurs and (gingerbread) people were simply not meant to coexist. After all, life always finds a way…
First We Haunted Mansion 