Animal Mask Cookies

These jumbo animal masks are not only fun, but they are also edible!  The 8" x 6" bunny mask and 6" x 7" raccoon mask are decorated sugar cookies.  Check out the cookie masks on BHG.com or continue reading for the tutorial....
To make this playful treat for your next kid party, start by creating the mask templates.  If you enlarge the photo below, you can trace the faces directly from your computer screen on a piece of parchment paper, or BHG.com has made templates for you to print:  Bunny Template & Raccoon Template.

You will only need the outline of the mask to create a template to place on top of rolled out cookie dough.  

After mixing your sugar cookie dough, place a piece of parchment paper on your surface.  We are going to cut the cookie dough on the parchment and place the parchment on a cookie sheet rather than transferring the dough and risking the dough shifting and getting mis-shaped in the process.

 Lightly dust the parchment paper with flour and then roll out your dough.  Place the mask template.

 Using a sharp knife or X-acto, cut around the raccoon mask pattern.

Place a wooden skewer on top of the cookie and press additional cookie dough on the top to help secure the skewer. Flip the cookie mask to another piece of parchment (so the extra dough bakes on the bottom of the cookie) and bake at 350F for approximately 12 minutes.  Remove the cookie from the oven as the edges just start to slightly brown.

Prepare a batch of royal icing for decorating.  I like to thin my royal icing using a spray bottle of water to help control the amount of liquid for thinning.  You want the icing to a flood consistency- meaning the icing takes about 15 seconds to spread.

To make it easier to switch icing colors and use only one decorator bag instead of one for each color, I like to wrap the icing in plastic wrap and thread through the bag.  This makes it easy to remove the decorating tip and switch to the next color without using multiple bags.

You will need to mix gray, black and pink royal icing colors along with plain white royal icing.  Using the white royal icing, pipe the bunny outline as seen below:

After the outlined icing sets a bit, flood the bunny cheeks, one tooth and both ears.  Place white sugar pearls for the bunny whiskers while the icing is wet or come back after the icing sets and pipe three little dots of white icing. Continue flooding the rest of the bunny face and then the other tooth (you want one tooth to set up so there are two distinct teeth instead of one giant tooth).

Pipe and fill the white portions of the raccoon mask.  Continue with the gray sections.  You can also fill the bunny nose with the gray icing now.  Pipe and fill the black portion of the raccoon mask.

 Let the black icing set up before piping the raccoon nose, so the  nose does not spread into the raccoon's black mask.  Fill the pink bunny ears and black raccoon nose.

The masks are ready for play after the royal icing dries.

If you're feeling intimidated by royal icing, you could also decorate the masks with frosting.  Better yet, for an added craft have the kids decorate their own animal mask cookie.

The masks are entertaining for the kids and encourage silly play. Send the edible masks home as a party favor or let the kids enjoy nibbling on the masks while they play.

The bunny and raccoon are just the start.  You can add other animals to your cookie mask collection...maybe a fox or an owl.  The bunny is perfect just in time for Easter.  Here it is as the centerpiece on our table:

The reactions of all the kids that have come to my house since making these masks is fantastic.  Once they figure out it is a cookie, their eyes get as wide as the mask eyes.