10 Sugar-Skull Recipes to Complete Your Day of the Dead Celebration

Updated on 11/1/2017 at 9:40 AM

One of the biggest traditions families incorporate when hosting a Day of the Dead gathering and building an altar is making homemade sugar skulls. The classic recipe is simple: sugar, meringue powder, and water.

Once you have your molds ready, you can go plain, adorn them with traditional designs, or add special touches and details to make your skulls truly unique for the person they are meant to honor. We've rounded up a variety of recipes with unique decorating options, and even a couple of different flavor selections, if you choose to make them edible.

Tint homemade frosting with food coloring to decorate these skulls with bright and vivid detail.

Keep these beautiful molded skulls clean and simple.

Flowers, gold accents, and plastic jewels add eye-catching style to this recipe.

How adorable is this Frida Kahlo sugar-skull variation, complete with fake roses in her hair?

Pink and purple are some of the most traditional colors of Day of the Dead, symbolizing celebration and grief, respectively. Use this recipe to highlight these themes.

Take it up a notch and go for a chocolate sugar-skull recipe, like this one.

These mini cinnamon sugar skulls make perfect cupcake toppers.

For an easy (and kid-friendly) option, decorate your sugar skulls with (nonedible) glitter and paint pens.

Go crazy with the color detail and design, even adding giant jewels for the eyes, like this recipe suggests.

These basic sugar skulls have a grainy, sugary texture, which just adds to the skulls' authentic look. They can be decorated with a homemade egg-white icing, as well as whatever craft supplies you have on hand, such as sequins, jewels, glitter, and feathers.