#43. Caramel Apple Skulls

When I’m not baking, eating, and cycling, I work in the neurosurgery department of a local medical school.

No, they do not let me crack open people’s skulls (YET); rather, my role as a PhD (fake doctor) is to help the physicians (real doctors) write articles, grant proposals, and sometimes, even whole books! It’s rewarding in a thousand different ways and I love geeking out over rare conditions and crazy-ass (that’s a technical term) procedures.

Therefore, it’s highly appropriate that at some point during Year of the Cookie, I make some edible skulls. The interim week between Thanksgiving and the grand baking blitz that will be December seemed like the right time.

Ingredients

• 1 (18.25 oz) pkg. Pillsbury caramel apple cake mix

• 1/2 cup flour (ish)

• 1/2 cup butter, softened to room temperature

• 1/4 cup light brown sugar

• 1 egg

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. Using a hand-held mixer, blend together butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract.

3. Gradually add in cake mix and flour until thoroughly combined. Dough should just verge on crumbly.

4. On a floured surface, roll out dough. Punch out skull shapes using cookie cutters you bought at Halloween clearance.

5. Bake for 12 minutes

6. Cool completely and frost with Pillsbury caramel apple frosting.