Who’s The King Of The Cookie Jungle?

safaricookiesMattGibson1

Sometimes I see a product and fall utterly in lust with it immediately. The intensity with which I covet said product is often inversely proportional to how much I rationally need it. Indeed, a product I may use once in a blue moon can often hold far greater appeal than one which I’d likely use regularly and often, and which might actually make life easier in a significant way.

Whether or not I actually need the product in question doesn’t really matter at all. (Unless it’s really expensive, in which case sheer “sticker shock”, as our American friends describe it, drives me to accede to my rational side).

Do you remember browsing through the Innovations catalogue as a kid? I remember bookmarking a whole host of cool but unnecessary products in every edition, though we never bought any of them. Except for those luggage straps with our names woven in; my dad did buy some of those…

These days, it’s sites such as Lakeland, Not On The High Street, Culture Label, HowKapow, Firebox and Suck UK which fulfil that function, full of things that make me Gollum-like in my need to own them. They’re good sites for finding gifts too.

SafariCookieCutters-0482

When I first saw these 3D Safari Cookie Cutters I think I might just have clapped my hands with glee, a cliché of delight if ever I performed one. But they were out of stock with no date given for when they might be on sale again, so they were relegated to the dusty depths of my bookmark folders. After an indeterminate period, by which time my fever for the cutters had finally abated to manageable levels, Suck UK obtained more stock and kindly agreed to send me review samples of the full set.

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Not realising that a recipe was included within, I sourced another recipe for plain sugar biscuits from the web, though I’ll try the one they provided next time. My vanilla sugar cookie recipe was delicious, holding it’s shape but with a pleasant chew to it too.

Mostly, the process was pretty straightforward with the exception of cutting out the baby hippo’s legs which were so small we couldn’t easily push the dough out of the cutters. Perhaps we’ll oil the cutters before we use them next time, or I might just miss out the baby hippo as it was far less cute than I anticipated!

SafariCookieCutters-0495

As instructed, we let the dough rest before rolling and let the cut cookies rest in the fridge before baking. The pieces held their shapes pretty well and we were able to assemble all of them except one, the baby giraffe, which just wouldn’t support itself properly. The legs were a touch wobbly on a a number of them, especially the mummy giraffe but they stood unaided in the end.

SafariCookieCutters-0532 SafariCookieCutters-0534SafariCookieCutters-0536 SafariCookieCutters-0541

Aren’t they magnificent?!

Of course, not only did the cookies enchant all of us (we made them during a self-catering holiday in Islay with friends), they were deliciously tasty too and it was a daft but fun pleasure to ask “who ate the baby hippo?” and “I’m munching the elephant ears right now!”

Artistic types could probably ice these and make them really roar (or grunt) but we thought they were lovely as they were.

I think they’d be a great gift for children who enjoy baking (and may encourage those who don’t) or could be a fun idea for a themed birthday party.

 

If you order them on Suck UK, you can’t specify a particular animal though they will send different animals if you order more than one. They suggest ordering on Firebox (which I assume is a sister site) if you wish to choose a specific animal. The sets are £7.50 / £7.99 from the two sites, respectively, plus delivery.

Suck UK also sell similar dinosaur 3D cookie cutters.

 

Kavey Eats received review samples of the 3D Safari Cookie Cutters from Suck UK.
Thanks to Matt Gibson for the additional image, used at the start of the post.

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14 Comments to "Who’s The King Of The Cookie Jungle?"

  1. Snig (Snigdha)

    What a brilliant post! You’ve brought such a smile to my face! These are just like those little wooden/cardboard things you push out to make 3D figures.

    I don’t have any children, but if I did, they would just love these.

    Can you imagine how cool they would be if you put just a little bit of coloured icing on them? For eyes, mane, tusks, teeth, noses, etc?

    Lovely work, Kavey. As ever!

    Lots of love
    Snig
    (Snigdha)
    xxxxx

    Reply
  2. Simon Taylor

    Brilliant idea – and solved a birthday present dilemma for Mrs.T. You’ll have to let us have the recipe you used too, I guess it’s important to have a cookie mix that doesn’t spread when cooking, so that the bits fit together easily.

    I ordered from Firebox, they turned up the following day – even though I selected the cheapest delivery option that said they’d be 3-5 days (I think). Excellent service and came with a little pack of free sweeties (they’ve gone…).

    I’ll report back when we’ve made some, post birthday…

    Reply
    kaveyeats

    Simon, this is the recipe we used, though we had to approximate as we had no scales (or cups) in the holiday house. We converted to weights (using online conversion tools) and worked out weight as best we could. As we didn’t have vanilla seeds with us (I usually use vanilla bean paste) we used vanilla extract.

    Ingredients:
    2.5 cups unsalted butter (at room temperature)
    2 cups sugar
    2 large eggs
    Seeds from 1 vanilla bean (or 3 tsp vanilla)
    5 cups flour
    1 tsp salt

    Instructions:
    1. Cream butter and sugar. Don’t over beat – too much air incorporated will cause cookie to spread more during baking.
    2. Add eggs and vanilla beans and mix in.
    3. Sift in dry ingredients (we didn’t sift, just threw them in) – flour, baking powder and salt.
    4. Mix into smooth dough. Again, don’t over work.
    5. Refrigerate for half an hour.
    6. Roll out between two sheets of parchment paper or clingfilm.
    7. Cut shapes, place onto baking tray and refrigerate again for an hour or more, before baking.
    8. Heat oven to 170 and bake for 8-12 minutes.
    9. Allow to cool before assembling.

    Can’t wait to see how you get on!

    Reply

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