Mexican Sugar Skulls

For Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead I was hell bound on making these. Well I'm lying, first I thought of buying them, but they are so gosh darn expensive that making them became a non issue. And though they are easy to make there sure is a lot of waiting. For instance after you take them out of the mold you have to let them dry for 8 hours, then you have to hollow them out and then let them dry for an additional 12 hours. Then you have to fuse the two pieces together with icing and then let them dry for an additional 2 hours before you can decorate them. So as you can see although they are easy to make they sure are time tedious.


My original goal was to make 20, giving me enough to decorate our altar/shrine with & then some for the kids to decorate themselves. Needless to say due to the long process I only made six.


Here is where I found the molds. They have detailed instructions complete with illustrations showing you how to make them, so I won't write them here. But I will say I did not buy them online they have a list of retailers that carry them so lucky for me the Bowers Kidseum in Santa Ana had them so all I or should I say all Ryan had to do was drive down there are purchase one. I purchase the large sugar skull mold which consists of two parts, the front & the back of the skull, they have all kinds of different sizes and varieties.


Here are some tips:

-Don't be too over zealous in packing in the sugar, I was and therefore I only got 6 sugar skulls when I should have gotten 10.
-If you have never worked with 10 pounds of sugar before may I suggest opting out of the 10 pound bag and buying two 5 pound bags instead. Reason I say this is no matter how big a bowl you have at home there is nooooo way you will be able to fit 10 pounds of sugar in it.
-The Merengue powder I was able to find at Michael's Arts & Crafs same with the color paste.
-For 10 large sugar skulls the website advices you use 4 pounds of sugar for the royal icing. I found that 2 pounds was more than enough. Seriously though, I have about 2/4 of it still left.

I hope next year some of you try to do this or at least think about celebrating Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead. It's a beautiful holiday that allows us to remember our beloved family and friends who have passed.

P.S. Since I cannot get the slide show and the text to coincide in one post the slide show is in the post above.