Homemade Circus Animal Cookies
This weekend while I was hanging out with my friend Catherine from Rabbit Food For My Bunny Teeth I felt inspired to make a fun, easy and HEALTHY cookie recipe. Homemade Circus Animal Cookies to be exact!Catherine is one of my all time favorite people and one of main inspirations for starting a blog. She’s my on call internet doctor, answering all of my silly blogging and Photoshop questions in the middle of the night. Not only does she post awesome healthy recipes, she posts super cool DIY projects. Like her famous DIY Workout Shirt you’ve probably seen all over Pinterest!
Anywho… Catherine and I have been talking about healthy alternatives to some of my treats and we came up with the idea to recreate the beloved store bough, pink and white Circus Animal Cookies. They were one of my favorite childhood treats, so I can’t wit to recreate them for you guys.
To keep with the Rabbit Food theme, we ended up making cute little Rabbit Animal Cookies. You can use any animal shapes you want though!
Instead of candy melts, we made our own icing and opted for all natural ingredients instead of food coloring.
Homemade Circus Animal Cookies Recipe
What you’ll need for the cookies…
1 ½ cups White Flour (or gluten free alternative)
½ cup Sugar
¼ tsp salt
½ cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread
1 egg (or egg replacer for vegan alternative)
½ tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all of your dry ingredients (sugar, flour, salt) in one bowl.
In a separate bowl, combine all of your wet ingredients (earth balance, egg, and vanilla) and mix well. I like to use my KitchenAid mixer, but you can use an electric hand mixer or a wooden spoon.
Slowly add your dry ingredients into the wet mixture until it’s well incorporated and you don’t see any flour mounds.
I recommend putting the dough in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes, particularly when using butter alternatives so it solidifies.
Roll out dough with a rolling pin in between parchment paper (if the dough seems too sticky to roll out, add an extra tablespoon or two of flour).
Cut desired shapes with your cookie cutters until all the dough has been used.
Bake for 5 minutes on a lightly or until lightly golden brown (be sure to spray your cookie sheet with oil or cooking spray so they don’t stick)
What you’ll need for the frosting:
1 Tbsp vanilla soy milk (or almond milk – creamer is best)
¼ tsp vanilla
Combine all ingredients with a small whisk. Divide frosting evenly into two separate bowls. Use 1/4 – 1/2 tsp of beet juice, cranberry juice or cherry juice in one half of the frosting to give it a light pink color.
Allow the cookies to cool completely before dipping them in icing.
Vegan option: Melt vegan white chocolate chips. Color half of the chocolate chips with about 1/4 – 1/2 tsp of beet juice for pink coloring.
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