Cookie of the Month: ‘Butting’ in for Easter cookies

[B]unny butts have weighed “heavily” on my mind for the last year or so.

Having re-entered rabbit parenting after some time away from it (adopting a colorful, fluffy, lively fellow named Zydeco), I’ve become more aware of the popularity of rabbits from their humans who post about them on social media.

One particular “ass-pect” (sorry) of bunnyhood that gets documented and shared all over social media is the famed bunny butt, one of the cutest features on a rabbit. Every Friday on Instagram the hashtag “#bunnybuttfriday” looms large and fluffy with thousands of rabbit moms and dads sharing the floofy derrières of their pets. I joined in the fun, too, with Zydeco, who isn’t always as enthused as I am about having his hind end photographed and shared.

Still, there isn’t much cuter than a bunny butt. And folks have been so inspired that baked goods are also taking on bunny butt renditions, with strikingly cute “end” results.

This past year, I noticed a brightly colored cookie cut and assembled (three cookies in one) to look like a bunny butt, with a large round cookie for the bunny body/butt and two smaller cookies serving as feet, complete with little toes. What a delight! I added this to my list of potential cookies for April, and finding a weekend where I was up for the project, set to making my own bunny butt cookies.

[T]he bunny butt cookie recipe I saw used store-bought sugar cookie dough, but I thought I could ratchet up the cookies a bit more by using a homemade, soft sugar cookie recipe, where both a little lemon zest and sour cream were a part of the flavor and texture boost to the cookies. (Recipe link: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/sour-cream-cutouts/).

[I] cut the recipe in half (it was originally for more than six dozen cookies) and still ended up with a substantial amount of cookie dough.

[T]he cookie dough was put into a plastic zip-lock bag to go into the fridge for some chilling time. 

[T]he next day, despite its length of time in the refrigerator, the dough was still quite soft and easy to work with and roll out. I think this was due to it being a half-butter, half-sour cream for the fat kind of ratio. 

[I] divided the dough up in sections and rolled and cut it out into the shapes I would be working with for the butts. I used a large round cutter, as well as a flower cutter (for fluffier bunnies) to make the body/butts, and egg-shaped cutters for the little feet.

[I] ended up with enough cookies for 12 bunny butts and feet, with a few extras

[T]he cookies puffed up a bit during the baking (which was fun, actually, for the intended shapes), and turned a beautiful, pale golden brown.

[I] tinted some canned frosting light blue (I had seen pink bunny butts and wanted to do something a bit different).

[I] frosted the bodies/butts first…my frosting skills aren’t great, but I managed to get them all covered without doing too much damage.

[T]he sets of feet came next, first frosting each foot, then using Jordan almonds and M&Ms for the feet bottoms or toe pads.

[I] used a little more frosting to “glue” the feet to the body/butt cookies and a half of a large marshmallow for the tail. Adorable.

[I]’m the first to claim I’m not great at decorating anything, particularly sugar cookies, but putting all these butts together, I ended up with a sweet little tribute to a bunny backside. If I could do it with my rudimentary skills, anyone could, and I considered that kids would have tons of fun making these.

[A]nd outside of looking so cute, they were delicious…soft, tender cookies, with a hint of lemon, lightly frosted. And the bonus was that each cookie really equaled three. Somehow, that multiplication seemed fitting for rabbit cookies! These were so fun to make…another sweeter way into #bunnybuttfriday. Or any day.

For the sugar cookie recipe, go to https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/sour-cream-cutouts/.

[T]o make the bunny butts, you will need round cookie cutters (small egg-shaped or oval cutters are optional, but do make cute feet), a can of frosting, food coloring (if desired) and M&M candies. Get creative and use your own ideas to create bunny butts!

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