Combine butter and sugar in a bowl. Mix on medium-low speed with a paddle attachment. Mix until incorporated. Don’t over mix.
Add eggs and mix and scrape the sides of the bowl.
Stir in vanilla.
Sift together flour, cocoa and salt.
Add in flour mixture to the bowl. Mix at low speed for 30 seconds.
The dough is ready when it sticks to the paddle mixture. Do not over mix.
Roll out the dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper.
Put on a baking sheet and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes.
Refrigerate pieces again for about 20 minutes.
Bake for 8-12 minutes or until centers are set.
Let cool.
For the Assembly:
Add red and blue food coloring to fondant (mixing more will give an even color. Mixing less will give a tie dye look)
Roll out and cut bands for the hat.
Cut out a buckle shape. You can either color the fondant yellow before rolling or you can use gold leaf or gold luster powder to create the buckle.
Cut off the end of an ice cream cone.
Cover cone in melted chocolate, then in sanding sugar.
Attach tip, chill in freezer to set.
Pipe melted chocolate onto the cut edge of the cone
Fill with candy of your choice (I chose m&ms)
Dip the edge in chocolate and attach to cookie.
Brush brim with melted chocolate onto cookie.
Sprinkle sanding sugar.
Attach band and buckle. You can brush a little water on if the fondant isn't sticking.
Video
Notes
If you're making them with little ones you can easily just go for the straight cone as it's less difficult to roll in melted chocolate and sanding sugar, and you don't have to cut the sugar cone.
Black sanding sugar is MESSY! So best to work over a baking pan and contain the chaos!
You will be microwaving your chocolate from time to time as it cools while you're doing the various steps. Black Candy Melt can be substituted for chocolate. It's easer to melt and you don't need to worry about it seizing.