So, I was going to a party hosted by a girl that LOVES flamingos. Everyone brought a little snack to share. Flamingos + snack = Flamingo Cookies! I looked up some ideas on Pinterest (my idea inspiration headquarters) and this is what I found.
This is from my Sounds Yummy board:
So, I began the way I always do with cutout cookies....with my grandma's recipe! I rolled out the dough and pulled out my flamingo cookie cutter. I found this gem in a container of 50 different animal shapes at Michael's. They were pretty cheap too! However, this one's made of plastic. If you're really in to flamingos and think you'd make these cookies often, I'd definitely invest in the more expensive metal cookie cutter like the one shown in the Pin. In my experience, metal is always better. The cuts are more crisp and the dough doesn't stick to it as easily. The reason I mention this, is because I had a lot of difficulty getting the shapes to stick using this plastic cutter. I had to reattach a lot of heads and legs as I put the shapes on the baking sheet.
As you can see, my shapes are a little different than the ones in the Pin. The legs aren't quite as fancy.
Next, I got to work frosting. The Pin looked like it used some fancy frosting but didn't tell me how they made it. So, I used my typical powdered sugar and milk mixture. I used red and yellow food coloring and made two different colors. I used just enough red to give the frosting a pink flamingo color. These pictures make them look a little red, but you'll see in the final photo that they turned out just the right color.
The Pin has you using some nifty bottles to squirt on the frosting. I didn't have anything that fancy, so I used the old ziplock baggy technique. (I put frosting into a ziplock baggie, moved the frosting all to one corner, got out all the air, sealed the baggie and clipped the corner). I frosted each cookie pink and yellow as shown.
Now came the tricky part. I had NO luck finding those fancy sprinkles the Pinner used. So I improvised with some purple/brownish frosting that I made. I used the same technique of application as I did on the rest of the cookie and added the end of the nose and eyes. This is definitely a must. Without this little touch the cookies kind of looked like ducks.
The finishing touch made them as believable as I could get them! The hardest part was obviously the eyes.
I threw them in a cute tin and headed to the party. They were quite the hit!
Ta-dah! Thank you for checking out my adventures. Can't wait for the next one!
Afterthoughts:
The frosting I make is SO easy and tasty, but sometimes it takes a really long time to harden....especially if I have to do layers of it. Anyone have any thoughts on how to get this type of frosting to harden faster? Sometimes I have to let my cookies sit out overnight or even longer before I can safely put them in a tin.
