Sunday, September 19, 2010

Army Man Cookies


These cookies are probably the furthest things from cute and pink that I have posted so far. Sometimes its hard not to only bake pretty things, I'm a girl its what I do. The thing about boys though is that not many of them share my love of pink, they like brown and green and playing with toys in the mud.

So when it came to making something for a good friends Birthday I decided on cookies based on the toys that most guys I know grew up with. Sugar cookies inspired by little plastic green and grey army men toys.

Happy Birthday Benny!


For the cookies

2 cups plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (one stick) butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To make the cookies: Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.

Cream butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. On a low speed gradually add dry ingredients, mix until combined.

Flatten dough into a disk, wrap in clingwrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. Take dough out of the fridge and let soften till workable.

Place the dough between sheets of baking paper and roll out to around ½ to ¾ centimetre thick. Place sheet in the freezer until firm.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. Line trays with non stick paper.

Cut out the man cookies and place on lined trays about 3cms apart. (If the dough has softened a lot, chill again before baking to ensure the cookies keep there shape)

Bake cookies until just coloured around the edges, about 15-20 minutes. Let cool on baking trays.


For the Royal Icing

4 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup meringue powder
2-3 tablespoons water (as needed)
green, black and brown food colourings

To make the icing- add all the ingredients into a medium bowl, beat the ingredients about 7 minutes until smooth. If the icing is too thick add a little more water at a time. (Thin the icing as needed when flooding the cookies)

Using a fine piping tip, outline each of the cookies. Allow the outlines to set before flooding with icing.


To make the camouflage randomly dot the cookies with each of the colours. Using a toothpick spread out the colours and slightly swirl together. Allow the icing to set hard.


Eat them up.

17 comments:

  1. These are fantastic! I quite agree about baking things that look girly but for something that is boyish these sre still so cute looking!! Nx

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  2. Nice I like the marbling. I must say I have a preference for pink, sugary and girly, it always tastes nicer

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  3. Perfect cookies, I love all the details.

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  4. ils sont magnifiques, c'est du beau travail
    tu es une artiste
    bravo et bonne journée

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  5. You are too talented. These are so original and so well executed!

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  6. Absolutely adorable! I'd love to try icing cookies like that, but my piping skills are horrible right now. I'm working on it, but for now I'll have to admire yours...

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  7. Not only were they absolutely delicious, the camouflage was extremely authentic! You're the best! :D :D

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  8. That's brilliant! A sure antidote to the girly designs. What black food colouring do you use? I recently tried tinting royal icing with Wilton black gel, but it just went grey like cement :(

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  9. Those are some cute, little army men!!!

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  10. These cookies are awesome!! Love how the tough army boys are actually gingerbread men ;)

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  11. Thanks everyone for the lovely compliments! These were lots of fun to make.

    Benny so super glad you like them, thanks for being rad :)

    Emma I used the Wilton black gel too, it took quite a lot to get it black, I just kept adding it little by little and when I thought it was good I added some more :) it didn't seem to effect the consistency though.

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  12. Absolutely adorable! Nice work :)

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  13. Too cool, I absolutely love them x

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  14. what was the quantity of cookies u made ???

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    1. It was a long time ago, but I think it made roughly 20-25 cookies.

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