Tuesday, October 2, 2012

GingerDead Cinnamon Ornaments for Halloween

I've been tickled by folks using Gingerbread boy cookie cutters and making GingerDead Skeleton Cookies for Halloween. I thought they'd also make really cute ornaments for my Halloween feather tree.  Or as garland by connecting them with holes through the hands, or maybe dangling them from bunting would be neat too. They smell great and oh how I wish every roll out cookie dough was this easy to work with!
Pin It
Once I made the skeleton I had to try a mummy too:@)
I'll hot glue ribbon or string to the back of little guy on the left for hanging. Wanted to see how they would look without the hole.

This is the paint I used, picked it up at AC Moore.

Cinnamon Ornaments-not edible-adapted from Allrecipes
1 C cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Up to 3/4 C natural unsweetened applesauce
2 Tbslp Elmers Glue
Paint and glitter for decorating
String for hanging on tree
  1. Mix first 4 ingredients together with your hands. You want a nice roll out cookie dough consistency, hold out some of the applesauce in case you don't need it all. If it seems too wet and sticky, add more cinnamon, too dry add more applesauce.
  2. Roll out the dough to 1/4" thick, you want it thicker rather than thinner. I rolled it between a sheet of parchment and wax paper. Peel the wax paper off and lay it back on top, flip the dough over and peel the parchment off and lay it back on top. Flip the dough over again so the parchment is on the bottom.
  3. Cut with cookie cutters, remove excess dough and place the parchment on a baking sheet. (You can re-roll any left over dough and make more ornaments.)
  4. At this point you can let them air dry naturally turning them over several times a day for about 3 days, or place them in a very low 200 degree (or less) oven for 2 hours. 
Notes:
  • As a point of reference, the 50¢ 2.37oz jar of cinnamon at Walmart is a tad over 1/2 C.
  • Tip: I layed a piece of parchment paper on my counter and just poured everything on top of it and mixed it on the parchment.
  • You can add more spices (I'm very fond of my cloves and used them sparingly:@), some recipes call for up to 1 Tblsp of cloves and 1 Tblsp nutmeg. Some call for only cinnamon, mix and match.
  • If you don't have a small coffee stirrer type straw you can use a toothpick to make a hole. 
  • This recipe will make approximately 12 ornaments using 'regular' sized cookie cutters. I made a half batch of dough, my small gingerbread man cutter is about 3" long and I ended up with 9 ornaments.
  • Folks say the smell dissipates quicker if you dry them in the oven. I did use the oven and left the ornaments in there over night after I turned it off at 2 hours.
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,