I let them cool completely, while I whipped up a batch of royal icing using the recipe from Sweetopia. Actually, I was inspired by Marian's elephant cookies post.
I took about three table spoons of icing, added to a small bowl and coloured it with a couple drops of Americolor Brown gel paste. I used just a touch of Americolor Avocado gel paste to color the rest of the icing a very light green for outlining the elephants and separated out about a cup. I then darkened the bulk of the icing by adding additional gel paste in the same colour - about three drops.
I was quite pleased with the way they turned out, so I snapped a few shots and was on my way to celebrate with family, my cousin's little bun in the oven. I say it's a girl and predict she will arrive on February 28, but I have never been correct about this sort of stuff.
In parting, here is a little elephant joke I found and just had to share:
An elephant was walking in a park. With each step he took, he squished many little ants. Upset, the ants began to crawl up on the elephant -- first his legs and then up all over his body. When the elephant started feeling all the little ants on him, he shook hard, making all the little ants, except for one, fall to the ground. As the only ant on the elephant hung on close to the elephants neck, the ones on the ground began to yell, "Strangle him!!! Strangle him!!!" Source
Ingredients
Cookies
- 452 g salted butter normally I use unsalted, but did not have any on hand, cool
- 690 g all purpose flour
- 270 g granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs cool
- 1 tablespoon crushed Tahitian vanilla beans
- 1 teaspoon rose water
Icing
- I used this recipe and added 1 teaspoon of Rose Water
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF. Place oven rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat.
- In the bowl of your electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the egg, crushed vanilla beans and rose water.
- In a separate bowl, sift the flour.
- Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Divide the dough in half and shape each half into a flattened circle. Wrap each disk in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until firm (at least two hours or overnight).
- Remove from fridge and use a rolling pin to roll dough out to about ¼ inch thick - I use dough spacers shown in the photo above to get even cookies.
- Cut into desired shapes and place on the baking sheet, spacing about 2 inches apart. Place in freezer for about 3-5 minutes.
- Remove from freezer, let rest 1 minute and then bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are a very light brown.
- Let cool completely before decorating with icing.
I Sugar Coat It! says
Oh Jacquee! You did a beautiful job on these cookies. Your sugar cookie recipe sounds lovely and your elephants turned out wonderfully! Congratulations to your cousin!
P.S. Loved the elephant joke 🙂
I Sugar Coat It! says
These elephants are seriously too cute! And they look like little cousins of your blog logo 🙂 The rose water in the cookies and icing sounds soo decadent.
I Sugar Coat It! says
I can only imagine the look of delight your sweet cookies brought to all the ladies at the baby shower! They are adorable! The green is such a gorgeous shade!