Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar
This book is filled with all sorts of adorable sweets. There is a marmalade cat cake, a family of sugar mice, a fluffy sheep cake covered in tiny marshmallows, and ducky cake-pops. These dog-shaped cookies are my favorite. Note: To avoid using raw eggs for safety reasons, I recommend using royal icing sugar mix or meringue powder.
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Give a Dog a Bone
Dog-shaped cookie cutters are available in just about every shape and breed imaginable so you can really go to town and make a whole host of furry friends!
1 quantity Basic Spiced Gingerbread*
TO DECORATE
plain/all-purpose flour, for dusting
1 quantity Royal Icing**
brown, black, blue and red gel or paste food coloring
silver sugar pearls
bone-shaped pastry/cookie cutter assorted dog-shaped pastry/cookie cutters
baking sheets, lined with baking parchment
small pastry/piping bag, filled with a fine writing nozzle/tip, or make your own
Makes 10–12
Prepare the basic spiced gingerbread according to the recipe, stopping at the end of Step 3. Preheat the oven to 160˚C (325˚F) Gas 3.
Dust a clean surface and roll the gingerbread 3 mm/1/8 inch thick. Using the cutters, stamp out dog shapes and carefully arrange them on the prepared baking sheets allowing plenty of space between each one. Gather the dough scraps together, knead lightly, re-roll and stamp out more cookies until all the dough has been used up. Bake the gingerbread in batches on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for 10–12 minutes or until the edges are just starting to brown. Leave to cool on the sheets for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Prepare the royal icing and leave one half of the icing in the mixing bowl and divide the remaining icing between two small bowls. Using the food coloring, tint one bowl brown and one black. Take out one tablespoon of icing from the white icing and, in a separate bowl, tint this blue or red for the collars. Cover and set aside.
Fill the pastry/piping bag with two tablespoons of the white icing and pipe a border around the edge of each bone and white-colored dog. Repeat with the brown and black icings for any brown- or black-colored dogs. Leave to dry for at least 10 minutes, then flood the insides of the outlines with the corresponding icing. If your dogs have patches of color, you need to do this before the icing sets. Add patches of brown and black to make white terriers. Leave to dry for 20 minutes.
Finally, pipe eyes and blue or red collars onto each dog. Decorate each collar with silver sugar pearls. Leave to dry completely before serving.
*Basic Spiced Gingerbread
Here is a simple, spiced gingerbread dough suitable for all the decorated cookies in this book. The recipe makes approximately 12 medium-sized cookies depending on the cutters used. If you like, add 1 tablespoon finely chopped crystallized ginger or candied peel to the dough to make the gingerbread more sophisticated.
2 tablespoons golden/light corn syrup
1 large egg yolk
200 g/1 2/3 cups plain/all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
11/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
a pinch of salt
100 g/7 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled and diced
75 g/1/3 cup light muscovado or light brown (soft) sugar
Beat together the golden/light corn syrup and egg yolk in a small bowl.
Sid the flour, baking powder, spices and salt into a food processor (or into a mixing bowl) and add the butter. Use the pulse button to process the mixture (or rub the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips). When the mixture starts to look like sand and there are no lumps of butter, add the sugar and pulse (or mix with your fingers) again for 30 seconds to incorporate. With the motor running, add the egg-yolk mixture and pulse (or mix with a wooden spoon) until starting to clump together.
Tip the mixture out onto a very lightly floured surface and knead gently to bring together into a smooth ball. Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1–2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3.
Lightly dust a clean, dry surface with flour and roll the dough evenly to a thickness of 2–3 mm/1/8 inch. Use a cutter or template to stamp out as many cookies as possible from the dough, cutting each one as close as possible to the next one. Arrange the cookies on baking sheets lined with baking parchment.
Gather the dough scraps together, knead lightly, re-roll and stamp out more cookies until all the dough has been used up.
Bake the gingerbread in batches on the middle shelf of the preheated oven. Keep an eye on the cookies, as you want them to brown evenly. You may have to turn the baking sheets around if your oven is hotter on one side than the other.
Allow the cookies to cool completely on the baking sheets before icing. Store undecorated gingerbread cookies in an airtight container for up to three days.
**Royal Icing
500 g/1 lb. 2 oz. royal icing sugar/mix
75–100 ml/about 1/3 cup cold water
OR
500 g/3 1/2 cups icing/confectioners’ sugar
2 large egg whites
USING ROYAL ICING/SUGAR MIX
Tip the royal icing sugar/mix into a large mixing bowl and add the water gradually, mixing with a whisk or wooden spoon until the icing is smooth and thick enough that it will hold a ribbon trail when the spoon or whisk is lifted from the bowl. This will be the consistency that you need for piping outlines or details on the cookies. You may need to add slightly more or less water to achieve the right balance.
USING ICING/CONFECTIONERS’ SUGAR
Note: This method uses raw eggs. Follow the method above, but use the egg whites in place of the water.
TINTING ICING
Divide the icing into separate bowls. It is best to use gel or paste food coloring for tinting royal icing. This is available in small pots and in a vast array of colors. A tiny amount of coloring goes a long way, so use it with caution. Using a cocktail s?ck/toothpick, gradually add dots of coloring to the icing and mix well before adding more color until you achieve the desired shade.
PREPARING FOR FLOOD ICING
Fill the appropriate number of pastry/piping bags with enough icing to pipe any outlines or details. The remaining icing will be used for flooding the outlines and will need to be slightly runnier, so add a drop more water to make it more like the consistency of double/heavy cream. Keep your icing covered when you’re not using it to prevent it from drying out. You will need pastry/piping bags to create the outlines and details on each cookie. Clear plastic disposable bags are the best thing for this purpose, or make your own. They are readily available from good kitchenware shops, sugarcraft specialists and online suppliers and come come in packs of 24.
FLOODING TECHNIQUE
Spoon the icing into the pastry/piping bag, squeeze the icing towards the ?p and twist the top to prevent any icing leaking out. Using sharp scissors, snip a tiny point off the end of the bag. Carefully pipe a fine outline around the edge of each cookie in the shape that you require. Leave this to dry for at least 10 minutes before flooding the middle with the runnier icing. You can either do this with the pastry/piping bag again, or with a teaspoon or a tiny spatula. Make sure the icing evenly fills the outline. Keep the filled icing bags wrapped in plastic wrap when not in use so that the icing doesn’t dry out.
Excerpted with permission from Magical Animal Cakes: 45 Bakes for Unicorns, Sloths, Llamas and Other Cute Critters By Angela Romeo & Annie Rigg, Ryland Peters & Small, 2020.
Tracey Zabar's Chocolate Chip Sweets: Celebrated Chefs Share Favorite Recipes is available here.
A delectable collection of innovative chocolate chip recipes by world-renowned chefs, pastry chefs, and bakers
Tracey Zabar's One Sweet Cookie Cookbook is available here.
A delicious collection of cookie recipes from extraordinary chefs, pastry chefs, and bakers. A great gift sure to delight anyone who loves to bake.
