Mother & baby rabbit butter cookies - house beautiful

72 cookies

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 cup Sweet butter, room temp.
1 cup Sugar
3 larges Eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
4 cups Flour
1½ teaspoon Baking powder
2 Recipes Royal Icing, separate recipe
Water
Paste or liquid food coloring, available at cake supply stores

Directions

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until pale yellow.

Beat in eggs one at a time until well incorporated. Stir in vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, mix flour and baking powder together. Slowly add dry ingredients to cream mixture. Divide dough into 4 pieces, wrap individually in plastic wrap and chill at least 1 hour.

Using one piece of dough at a time, roll dough on a floured board and cut out about 18 cookies with a 5-inch-high rabbit cookie cutter.

Place cookies on parchment-lined cookie sheets, 2 inches apart, bake in a preheated 350' oven 10 to 15 minutes, rotating pans halfway through baking time. Cool cookies on wire racks before decorating.

Repeat process and cut out about 1 8 cookies using a 2-inch-high rabbit cookie cutter. Place cookies on parchment-lined cookie sheets, 1 inch apart, bake in a preheated 350' oven 8 to 10 minutes, rotating pans halfway through baking time. Do not bake large and small cookies on the same baking sheets. Cool cookies on wire racks.

Glaze cookies: Thin royal icing with water until it is the consistency of Elmer's glue. Divide icing among 4 bowls and stir in desired food coloring. Cover icing when not working with it. Pour icing in the middle of the cookie and guide it to just the edge with the back of a small spoon or brush. Allow icing to dry overnight.

Rabbit features are piped with #1 decorative tip fitted to a small pastry bag half-filled with royal icing. This icing should be thick but flow easily from the pastry bag. Add confectioners' sugar if the icing is too thin. Allow to dry at least 1 hour. Attach small rabbit to the large rabbit with a dab of the icing. The other cookie decorations are completed with several #2 and #14 decorative tips fitted to small pastry bags and half-fiued with icing. A #21 decorative tip can be used for the powder-puff tails. Allow icing to dry overnight before storing.

House Beautiful/April/94 Scanned & fixed by DP & GG

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