frida sugar skulls

I did a post on sugar skulls in September. It was my first attempt and the icing situation was really sucky. Plus, I was using these skulls from Martha S. that I bought at Michaels. They were fine, don't get me wrong, but I don't know. I wanted more.

Yesterday, I went to my favorite store in Philadelphia, the Eye's Gallery. (Well, in competition with the Architect's bookstore) I went in after a long day seeing my father and driving driving driving. I went in to buy a full skeleton for my altar. I ended up purchasing two skeletons and a milagro of eyes, since St. Lucy is always pictured with her eyes on a platter.

Anyhow, whilst there, I noticed a table filled with the ingredients and tools to make sugar skulls--molds, meringue powder, gel food coloring, even the baker's bags for icing. I bought some food dye and thought I would give it another shot. This time I bought Frida Sugar Skull molds. They are also available on Mexican Sugar Skull.com

 There is a more detailed recipe on the package, which helps immensely. So, first, one teaspoon of meringue to one cup of sugar. Then sprinkle the mixture with one teaspoon of water. Mix it with your clean hands. It says to mix it for four minutes to get it consistent, and that seemed about right to me.

 

You fill them with the mixture. You know it is done because it is like wet sand, and you can press your finger into the mixture and the impression stays.

 

Then press it into the molds, like it is brown sugar. Pack it down hard.

 

Then, use a piece of cardboard to back the molds and flip it over. 

Your sugar skulls now have to harden for eight hours. Which is why I did these around 6p and waited until morning, and different lighting to make the royal icing and decorate.

I feel like this is a good time to tell you that everything you are making here is edible. It just doesn't taste very good, particularly Royal Icing and red gel food coloring, but technically you can eat it.

Royal icing is very easy to make. It is particularly important to use gel food coloring. That is what ruined my last batch of sugar skulls, the liquid food coloring. So, this is the recipe which makes a shitload of royal icing--one pound of confectioner's sugar and 1/4 cup of meringue. Add 1/3 cup of water. Mix with a hand or standing mixer for about nine minutes, until there are peaks.

I decided I wanted five colors and so I split it up accordingly. Added some gel food coloring, which comes in these little containers. I then put them in ziploc sandwich baggies. Don't fill it too much or it will split. I think cut the smallest little corner. I mean, really small. Almost too small to see. In fact, use a magnifying glass.

My icing baggies are ready, the skulls are lined up. Then you begin the decorating. You can use sequin, little jewels, whatever you choose. The royal icing will dry to cement like hardness. You need to let it dry though. And the food coloring, like all food coloring, dyes everything. My fingers are a technicolor wonder

I loved this project. So much fun. These Frida molds are wonderful with all the flowers and fun you have the liberty to create within its bounds.

Each one is different than the next. I love this one of marigolds.

 

I love the touch it brings to my ofrenda too. Homemade color. Can't wait to see your sugar skulls. xo

sugar skulls

I have always wanted to make sugar skulls. Not just paintings or papier mache, but real, edible sugar skulls. A few weeks ago, wandering around Michael's, as I am wont to do, I saw that Martha Stewart makes plastic skull molds.

I was delighted on one hand, and on yet another, I was also standing there, my kids spinning in circles in the fake flowers, saying, "What the Fuck?" No, really, Martha?. Skull molds? It is a strange world we live in.

I bought them.

Of course, I friggin' bought them.

Because they are called party molds, I wasn't sure how they were going to turn out for sugar skulls. Sugar skulls are both incredibly easy to make and also a wee bit of magic. My first batch was riddled with first world problems--organic unbleached sugar looks like sand, and so my skulls really looked like sand skulls, which is more DUNE than Dia de los Muertos. And I poured water into my sugar from my Brita filter and too much went in, so it was too wet, which ruined the drying time...see, first world problems.

Let me start with the recipe. One cup of sugar. One teaspoon of meringue powder. A little bit of water, like seriously four drops. Or better, get your hands wet and mix it all together. I went out and bought white sugar, unlike the above picture, and tried again. The consistency is like sand. You mix it, press it into the molds, then flip them onto some cardboard, and they should pop right now. My first brown batch didn't come out of the molds at all--too much water.

So, I mixed the second batch a day later with white sugar, and when I flipped the molds over, the white ones were perfect. I let them sit overnight.

The recipe book I have says, "Mix some food coloring into powdered sugar for icing." Yeah. That didn't work for me. It was terrible. I had cookie icing, and dyed it some colors, and used that, which was very wet. I am terrible at baking and all things delicate. So, they are truly terrible, but I did a few with Beezus screaming--MAKE IT PINK!

 

The only thing I like about these sugar skulls is that they look like Mexican wrestling masks. But in general, I think they are terrible. I might make some icing for them to experiment, but I really have so much stuff to do, I can't even believe I spent this much time on them. Here are the last four empty slates...still figuring these out.

 

Tomorrow is Mabon, and we are very excited to be feasting and getting ready for the Autumn. I will blog about our feast and our celebration. With love to all.