Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Animal Crackers/Giveaway


Don't forget to enter the giveaway I am hosting for a $65 CSN gift certificate.  Click HERE for details.

Lions and Tigers and Bears....oh my....!  Welcome to Red Couch Recipes and to the first week of Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday where the letter of the week is A and is for ANIMAL CRACKERS.  What would a childhood be without animal crackers?  Shirley Temple in the movie Curly Top even sang a song about them.  She is so enchanting in this, and many other movies.  I love the part where she conducts the other children in a silverware choir.  Here are the adorable words to the song "Animal Crackers in my Soup

"My mother said:
My little pet,
you oughta learn the
al-pha-bet.
So in my soup
I used to get,
all the letters
of the
al-ph-bet.
I learned them all
from A to Z,
and now my mother's
giving me,
Animal crackers in my soup
monkies and rabbits loop the loop,
Gosh, oh gee, but I have fun,
swallowin' animals one by one.
In every bowl of soup I see,
lions and tigers watching me,

I mae 'em jump right thru a hoop,
those animal crackers in my soup
When I get hold
of the 'Big bad wolf'
I just push him under to drown.
Than I bite him
in a million bits
and I gobble him right down.
When they're inside me
where its dark,
I walk around like Noah's ark
I stuff my tummy like a goop
with animal crackers in my soup!"

Click HERE to see the music video on YouTube.


I won this great giveaway from Sue at Munchkin Munchies.  Sue is a creative and adventurous cook living in the central coast area of California.  Thank you Sue.  Sue has a post on making the animal crackers on her blog.  She iced them so they look just like Mother's Animal Crackers.    I have eyed the embossing cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma before so I was excited to try them.  I am dreaming up what to do with the food tattoos and my girls will have fun cooking with the cookbook; the cute erasers are already claimed.  Yesterday my nine year old daughter Talley and I made animal crackers after school.


You cut out the cookie, as you would with a normal cookie cutter.  That's is Talley doing the cutting.


Then you press on it, so that it embosses.  They are so cute and taste so much better than normal animal crackers.



Animal-Cracker Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp. mace
12 Tbs. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Directions:
Over a small bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and mace. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, beat the butter on high speed for 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium, slowly add the sugar and beat for 2 minutes, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg and vanilla and beat for 1 minute, stopping the mixer once to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
Stop the mixer and add half of the flour mixture. Beat on low speed until most of the flour has been absorbed. Add the remaining flour and beat until all of the flour has been absorbed and the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl, 2 to 3 minutes.
Turn the dough out onto a work surface and divide into 2 equal balls. Shape each into a disk and wrap separately in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.
Let the dough stand at room temperature for 5 minutes. Place each dough disk between 2 clean, large pieces of plastic wrap. Roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. (If the dough cracks while rolling, let it stand at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes more.) Remove the plastic wrap and place the dough on a floured work surface. Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour.
Preheat an oven to 350°F.
Line several baking sheets with parchment paper. Dip circus cookie cutters into flour just before using and cut out the shapes. Hold each cutter over a prepared baking sheet and lightly depress the plunger to remove the cutout; the plunger will also imprint the tops of the cookies. Freeze the baking sheets for 15 minutes, or refrigerate for 30 minutes. Gather up the scraps, reroll and cut out more cookies.
Bake the cookies until very light golden brown, 14 to 16 minutes. Transfer the baking sheets to wire racks and let the cookies cool to room temperature. Makes about 20 cookies of each shape.   Notes:  I did not follow these directions exactly.  I found that it was easier to make a thicker cookie, so I did not get the yield of 20 cookies per shape.  We also did not refrigerate or freeze them; they held their shape nicely.  I also want to thank Sue because I cut and copied the Williams-Sonoma Recipe from her blog.

How fun are these?


Thanks for dropping by my Red Couch today.

I have posted this with Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.



21 comments:

KatiePerk said...

Wow!Those are so cool!! And now I have the Animal Crackers song in my head.

Bonnie said...

When my oldest daughter was little (back when I had a lot more time on my hands) we made homemade graham crackers which we cut out with cookie cutters shaped like ducks, her favorite cutter in my drawer. She called them Cookie-Ducks. Yours look so much tastier, and less healthy. That's a good thing! I'm less up-tight about what we all eat now (although I'm not so sure that a good thing. :)

Lynn said...

Your cookies are cute! I'm gonna copy this recipe because I have the "message" cookie cutters from W-S and I'm trying to find a dough that doesn't puff up too much and ruin the words!

Sue said...

What a fun post! I'm glad you and your daughter made these together:) They look fabulous! Curly Top is my favorite Shirley Temple movie, with Heidi a close second. Thanks for including the lyrics, I never knew them all.
Thanks for the mention, Joni:)

Sarah said...

Joni, these are darling! What a fun activity to do with your daughter. I used to make little mini animals cookies just the size of what come in Animal Cracker boxes. It was always a fun gift to little ones who were going to the circus. ~ sarah

Entertaining Women said...

This is so much fun! I think that I shall need to put these on my Christmas list...to give and to get. Thanks for sharing such a darling idea.

Pondside said...

Those animal crackers are so cute! I used to love the little boxes that the store-bought ones came in - with the little string handle.

Clements Family said...

Very Very cool! We love animal crackers. I must check out this company!

Anonymous said...

These are wonderful! I love the cookie cutters too. What great giveaway prize to win!

Teresa said...

Those look wonderful! This is a great A post.

Brenda said...

The cookie cutters are too cute! Thanks for sharing the recipe. I tried to think of a theme for the round of Alphabe-Thursday but did not realize it started this week. Just winged it yet again.

signed...bkm said...

absolutely darling crackers....I want to bite their heads off...bkm

Terra said...

I just adore that song (sung in it's original form) and I would love some of your cookies too!

Coralie Cederna Johnson said...

Delightful and delicious at the same time. What a sweet COMBO!!!
Happy Alphabet Day!
Coralie

~✽Mumsy✽~ said...

Animal crackers were my children favorite snack. Thanks for posting the recipe!

Susan Anderson said...

What a perfect post to begin Alphabe-Thursday! And your animal crackers look wonderful. I'd like to eat one right now!!

=)

Rocky Mountain Woman said...

That looks like a fun project to do with my grandkids!

Write Chick said...

YUM. These look delicious! I love animals crackers. Even the grocery store version that comes in the cardboard container. Yours are definitely yummier. I can tell.

Jenny said...

What a wonderful link to Alphabe-Thursday!

I never heard all the lyrics of that song before! They are adorable!

And what a fun, fun recipe. Your prize looks sooo cool. I know you will do something wonderful with everything you received.

Thanks for this delicious link! I always enjoy my stops here!

A

Unknown said...

My grandkids would love to make and eat these...there is something so fun about eating animal crackers......

Susan said...

Very cool, and I bet tasty!!
good post.
Susan

ps...sorry for being so late

Engageya