Sugar Skull Chocolate Chip Brownies

Ghouls and bats, skeletons and black cats! These are the makings of a good Halloween.

Of course we couldn't have Halloween Treat Week without something skeletal, so we whipped up a frighteningly fudgy brownie and gave it a decorative icing in hopes of honoring the dead.

Spooky Sugar Skull Chocolate Chip Brownies

(approx. 1-2 hours; 40-60 mins to bake, about an hour to decorate)

(makes 8 brownies)

3/4 cup (3 1/2 oz) of all-purpose flour
1/3 cup of cocoa powder
1/4 tsp of baking powder
1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/8 tsp of salt
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of water
Another 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips (we're gonna melt these down)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup of unsalted butter (melted)
1 tsp of vanilla extract

Royal Icing

2 lbs of powdered sugar
5 egg whites
1/2 tsp of cream of tartar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Over a double-boiler, combine the water, sugar and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and stir until melted.

While the chocolate mixture is cooling, whisk together your flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, the remaining 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips and salt in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

In a separate bowl. whisk together the eggs, vanilla and butter and pour over top the flour mix and stir together.

Add the cooled chocolate mix and combine, making sure not to over-mix.

Pour thee batter into an 8"-8" (or skull-shaped) baking pan and slap that bad boy in the oven for 40-60 minutes or until the you can pull a toothpick out cleanly.

While the brownies were cooling, we whipped up a batch of royal icing that we could color and use to decorate our skull.

You quite simply combine the egg whites, cream of tartar and powdered sugar in a lrage mixing bowl and whisk until fully incorporated.

We then added concentrated gel food coloring to get the desired shade.

After the brownies were ready, we got to icing. You can really let the creative juices flow here.

Give the icing 10-15 minutes to dry and you're done!

This skeletal snack is sure to WOW! everybody at your next party and the fudgy, chocolatey flavor will keep them coming back for more!!