The first annual Halloween Recipes Week at the Pocus!� concludes with this freaky and traditional Sicilian recipe:

Ossa di Mortu, or Bones of the Dead: There are many versions of the Bones of the Dead, cookies Italians make for the Day of the Dead, November 2. This one is Sicilian.

This is a treat for November 2, which is a children's holiday in Sicily. It's traditional in eastern Sicily to make skulls and tibias with a very white dough that contrasts sharply with the sections where the sugar darkened close to the pan during baking. They do require the appropriate skull or tibia-shaped molds; your best bet will be a specialty store. Mexicans do things with skulls too, you may find moulds you can use in a latin supermarket.

The dough is made by combining equal weights of sugar and unbleached all purpose flour, adding a half-ounce of ground cloves for every 2 1/4 pounds of flour and sugar mixture. Heat the ingredients with a little water in a pot over a brisk flame, stirring constantly, and as soon as all has fused into a homogenous paste use the paste to fill appropriately shaped molds, pressing it down firmly with your hands.


Let the dough sit in the molds for a couple of days, then remove them, dampen their undersides with a little water, and bake them briefly in a hot (380 F, 190 C) oven. The sugar will rise through the undersides of the cookies, acquiring a pretty brownish cast.