Dia De Muertos, The Day of the Dead, is a Mexican holiday dedicated to prayer and rememberence of friends and family members that have died. It is a celebration to help support their spiritual journey.
Mexican's view the day, not as sadness, but as a celebration because their loved ones awaken and celebrate with them.
It's traditionally called Dia De Muertos, but in English we add 'Los', making it Dia De Los Muertos. This is because it is a backwards translation of the original name.
Prior to Spanish colonization in the 16th Century, the celebration took place at the beginning of summer. Gradually it was associated with October 31st and November 1st & 2nd to coinside with Halloween.
Traditions connected with Dia De Muertos include;
Building private alters called Ofrendas. This is a collection of object on a ritual display, it can be quite large and elaberate; it is created for an individual person who has died and is intended to welcome them to the altar setting.
Honouring the deceased using Calaveras, Aztec Marigolds and the favourite foods and beverages of the departed. A calaveras is a representation of a human skull; often decorative or edible.
Visiting graves with these gifts.
Visitors leave posessions of the deseased at the graves.
I made these biscuits using our lemon iced biscuit recipe.
Check out our Sweet Treat page for other sugar biscuit recipes you can use. You can also find some on our Christmas page and our Easter page.
It's a super easy recipe to follow and they taste amazing. I left the lemon out of these ones and added extra vanilla essence.
I used a skeleton and skull cookie cutter that I had from halloween.
I made my biscuit design quite simple this time, I found this was best as my 2 year old wanted to help and she's teething so requires alot of on and off attention at the moment. You can make them however complicated you would like, simple can be just as good!
You need to let the biscuits cool completely before you decorate them.
Make sure you make the royal icing quite thick, especially if you add food colouring as it will make the mix runnier.
Dia De Muertos is a very colourful celebration, so I made up lots of bright colours to decorate my biscuts with.
You can decorate these biscuits however you would like to; you can use any colours and patterns.
I find it easier to pipe a border around the edge of the biscuits and then fill it in, this helps to stop the icing from running.
Remember to let each layer dry before adding another one, else the colours will run.
Sometimes wet on wet makes some great designs.
When you put a colour next to another colour, if they aren't both dry they will run into each other so if you don't want this to happen let the first colour dry before adding the second.
I use a scribler to help spread the icing and direct it, this is the pink and yellow metal point you can see I use in the video.
Before I bought these, I just used a toothpick, this still works well.
If you make a mistake, you can use the scribler to gently scrape the icing off and start again.
I hope you love these as much as I do!
If you have any questions please send us a message. You can message us on here, facebook, instagram and youtube. We look forward to talking with you!
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Marisa
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