monkey and elephant cookies

After I made these caterpillar cookies for my friend Nancy's daughter's first birthday party, our friend Cindy K. got a chance to see and taste the cookies, and then asked me to make cookies for her daughter Reese's birthday as well! If you know Reese, she is quite the monkey, always climbing up on couches, counters, window sills, you name it! So it seemed only natural for Cindy to be throwing a monkey-themed party! She asked for monkey and elephant cookies, and luckily I already had these Wilton cutters which were perfect!

After baking up 2 batches of my buttery sugar cookies (recipe in my new book!), I whipped up a batch of royal icing (recipe also in the book!), divided it, and colored it. First up were the monkey cookies. I used brown stiff royal icing to outline the face and the ears. Then I used brown runny icing to fill them in.

After letting them dry for several hours (overnight), I used tan stiff icing to pipe an oval outline on the monkey's face, and then filled it in with tan runny icing. Then I used pink runny icing to fill in the ears. Once the tan icing had dried for several hours, I used black stiff icing to pipe the eyes, nose, and mouth. Cute!

For the elephant cookies, I started with stiff gray icing to pipe the elephant outline, as well as the outline of the inner ear, before filling it in with runny gray icing.

Once the icing had dried (overnight), I used runny pink icing to fill in the ears, and black stiff icing to pipe the eyes, nostrils, and smile. Super cute!

Once the cookies had all dried completely, I wrapped each one in a cellophane bag tied with raffia. Then I boxed them up with fat bubble wrap, and sent them on their way to Cindy!

Happy Birthday, Reese! Hope you had an awesome day, you little monkey! :)

pink and white baby shower cookies and macarons

To go along with the elephant baby shower cake that I made for my friend Helen's baby shower, I also made elephant cookies, onesie cookies, and pink strawberry macarons for the dessert table!

For the elephant cookies, I used my favorite sugar cookie and royal icing recipes.  Once the dough was chilled, I rolled it out, cut out my elephants, then baked them at 350F for 10-12 minutes.

Once they were cooled, I outlined them with pink stiff royal icing, and then filled them in with pink runny royal icing.

After letting the cookies dry for a few hours, I used a darker shade of pink to pipe the outline and the ears, and then the eyes with black royal icing.

For the onesie cookies, which I've made several times in different colors (see here, here, and here), I followed the same steps, except that I made them white with pink outlines, and little pink heart in the center of each onesie.

Then I let the cookies dry overnight, before wrapping them in cellophane bags tied with raffia and a custom favor tag.

Next for the macarons!  For the macaron shells, I used the same recipe as I did here, but made them pink with strawberry filling like I did here.  Except I made them a darker pink.  Then I piped them on a silpat, and let them rest for 20 minutes before baking them.

They came out of the oven with beautiful ruffled feet!

Then I filled them with cream cheese buttercream mixed with fresh strawberry puree.

You can click here to see more pictures of the baby shower, which was featured on the Hostess With The Mostess blog!

circus carnival animal cookies - giraffes, lions, and elephants

My friend Cindy has a friend Michelle who was planning a carnival-themed birthday party for her daughter, and she asked me to make cookies shaped like animals for the party favors.  After a few emails back and forth, I decided on making elephants, lions, and giraffes.  (Luckily a few months ago I had purchased this animal cookie cutter set, so a variety of different animals were at my fingertips!)

After baking and cooling my cookies, I set out to decorate the cookies with royal icing.  I decided to pipe the elephants in blue, and after the first layer of icing had dried (overnight), I piped on eyes and ears and outlined the elephant for the finishing touches.

For the giraffes, I piped them in yellow, and while the icing was still wet I dropped in some brown royal icing for the spots.  Then after all that had dried, I piped on the eyes and a yellow outline.

The lions were also piped in yellow, and after they dried overnight I piped on a bright orange mane, eyes, and outlined it in yellow as well.  For the mane, I couldn't decide between a curly-Q mane or a solid filled-in mane, so I ended up doing both!

I loved all the colors of the final result!  Stay tuned for my upcoming post on the carnival cake that I made to go with these cookies!

*** Update: The carnival cake post can be found here!