Animal Cookies

I took my my boys to a free day at the zoo.  (Which I will never do again.  It was a madhouse!)  I wanted to bring some fun treats and I had 3 cookie cutters that I wanted to try.  And yes, you do not find dogs, like my cookie, at the zoo, but I wanted to try it, so I did!  You will notice the the faces do not look exactly the same as on the cookies cutters.  That is because when I filled the face i could no longer see the imprints of the face.  But I looked at them, and, for some I changed a little as i put the faces on.

So I baked shortbread sugar cookies and used these cookies cutters.  The cookies got bigger in the oven a bit, but I was able to see the lines still.  Lets start with the monkey:

To keep all the sections separate, I had to do one section at a time.  More than one section can be done at once if none of the edges touch each other.  By the way, I am using royal icing.  I made both vanilla and chocolate icing.  I started with the top of the head, back arm, and the back leg.  After an hour, it was hard enough to move onto other sections.  I mixed some of the chocolate with the vanilla that was tinted a light yellow to get the lighter brown color.  I then filled the face and front leg.  Next I did the front arm.  Then the Tail and hands.  I then let it all dry overnight.  The next morning I used some edible markers to draw the face.

Now the lion:

For this animal, I tinted some of the vanilla royal icing yellow and some orange.  I was able to start by outlining and filling the face and back legs.  When those were done i did the front legs.  After all the yellow was dry enough, I filled the mane with the orange and then let the whole cookie, dry overnight.  I used the chocolate royal icing the next morning to make the face.

Dog:

I filled the head, front leg, and the tail.  Next came the ears and the rest of the body.  Now to get the spots, as soon as I was done filling the body part, I put a few dots with the brown and light brown icing.  It is called wet on wet royal icing technique.  I did this same technique for the brown eye.  When the cookies was all done, the face was hard enough to pipe a nose.  I bet you can guess what I did next, yes, let it dry overnight.  And yes, I used the edible markers for the rest: eyes, mouth, and toes.

I made enough for each of my boys to have one of each and they loved them!  It was a fun trip.  Next time, though, I will go on a different day!