Animal cookies recipe

Cute little biscuits in the shape of their favourite beasts, these animal cookies are sure to be a hit with the kids.

These biscuits have been created by Annabel Karmel, one of our favourite kids' cookery writers. Her recipes are always as simple as possible, so there's really very little that can go wrong. And they're always popular with children, who can help with the mixing, rolling and cutting too. You can cut these into any shapes you (or your small people) fancy, and decorate them as you like. Sheep are nice and easy because most of the icing is white, so there's no need to use food colouring. Plus we love the slightly shifty look these chaps have, as though they've been caught trying to get into next door's field. This batch makes about a dozen biscuits, and they'll keep for a few days in a tin, once they're cooled.

Ingredients

• 45g butter, softened
• 70g soft light brown sugar
• 4 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 large egg yolk
• 170g plain flour
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ¼ tsp salt

To decorate:

• 125g icing sugar, sifted
• Writing icing

Method

1. Beat the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy, then beat in the golden syrup and egg yolk until just combined. Sift over the flour, ginger, bicarbonate of soda, and salt, and stir in with a wooden spoon to form a dough. Put the dough on a piece of cling film and pat into a disc about 1cm thick. Wrap up and refrigerate for 1–2 hours until firm.
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Roll out the dough between two pieces of baking parchment until about 3mm thick. Cut out the animal shapes, and use a palette knife to transfer them to baking trays lined with parchment. If the dough becomes too soft, then lift it, still on the parchment, on to a baking tray and pop in the freezer for 5–10 minutes to firm up.
3. Bake the biscuits for about 12 minutes until puffed and just turning golden around the edges. Leave them to cool on a wire rack.
4. Make the icing by mixing the icing sugar and 1 tbsp water. Pipe the icing into the cookies to decorate.
5. Draw on faces and other features using writing icing squeezed from a tube.

Top tip for making animal cookies

Try flavouring these cookies with other things like cinnamon or lemon rind, instead of the ginger.

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Chocolate chip cookies

Sugar cookies recipe

Peanut butter cookies