Elephants on Parade

These were sooo much fun to make!  I made them for the baby shower of a teacher at my girls’ school…

 These were relatively simple, but ended up being time-consuming because the cookies were big, 5″ across.  I made 2 dozen, and it took 2 full batches of dough with no extra for goof-ups.  I used the shower invitation as my inspiration for the cookie designs, I loved the colors and patterns from the letters in the invitation.

You can get this invitation here.

This is the breakdown of how I did each cookie (*I added the eye onto each one while the icing was wet so it would sink in and be flat with the rest of the icing):

1.  Outlined and filled in white royal icing, at a slightly thinner than flood consistency (so the flood icing wouldn’t dry too much as I added the starbursts.) Then added the multicolored dots a few at a time and carefully pulled out using a toothpick to create the starburst.

2.  Similar to the first one, outlined and flooded the cookie in pink (I also did these in green) and then added the white polka dots while the icing was wet so the dots would be flat.  I added the ears after the icing was dry.

3.  Outlined the cookie with blue royal icing.  Next I made the flowers, starting with the center (and the outline for the flowers that had outlines.) After drying for a bit I added the petals for the large ones, and every other petal for the smaller ones.  Dried a bit then added the remaining petals on the small flowers (and I liked how the small flowers turned out a lot more than the larger ones, so next time I would do the same for the larger ones.) Last I filled the rest with blue flood icing, using a toothpick to move the icing into the narrow areas around the flowers.

4.  Outlined the cookie in white royal icing.  Then, starting at the top left corner I piped the lines (with slightly thicker than flooding consistency icing) one right after the previous, so they would dry fairly flat (see the picture below.)

5.  Outlined and flooded the cookie with white royal icing, piped the eyes, and allowed to dry for a bit (by a fan, about 30 minutes.)  Then I piped all the multi-colored dots, some overlapping others a bit.  By allowing the white base icing dry a bit, the dots stood out more and gave them more depth, which I loved!

6.  These were by far the easiest (for obvious reasons)…outlined and filled with solid colored royal icing, added the eye, allowed to dry, and then added the ear.  Very simple, but I love the contrasting colors between the body and the ears, super cute!

The picture below doesn’t do the colors justice…they were so bright and fun!

Elephants on parade!!!