Penguin Cookies with Cute Little Hats
What happens when two friends who share a love of cookie decorating get together? They make penguin cookies of course.
I have a great friend named Johnna. She lives about an hour away from me so we don’t get together as much as we would like. But when we do get together, we have fun talking about family, work, life, and cookies. There is always a lot of cookie talk. And sometimes like this week we actually get to decorate.
Johnna (aka The Polka-dot Zebra) is an amazing decorator. I am in total awe of her decorating skills. You can see her cookies here. Go ahead and check them out and I’ll wait for you.
See…I told you she is amazing! When she came over Monday she brought some cutters with her. When she started unpacking the cutters I noticed a tree cutter that I had seen at Michael’s. It was a set of four but she only bought the tree. I started laughing because I bought the other three and not the tree! I showed her the three I bought, and when we looked at the elf cookie cutters we both saw a penguin. We laughed more and headed to the kitchen and got to work.
Supplies for Penguin Cookies:
White-outline, flood, and a little stiffer than the outline
Black- outline, and flood
Orange-outline
Soft Pink – outline, and flood
Sky Blue – outline and flood
Electric Green-outline and flood
#16-star tip for the fur on the hats
Icing Recipe
Sugar Cookie Recipe
**UPDATE** Michael’s doesn’t carry the penguin cutter anymore. Truly Mad Plastics has one that is almost identical.
First you will need to outline the penguin cookies face and tummy area with white outline icing.
Next, with the white flood icing, fill the tummy and face.
Now, outline and fill the feet with orange icing.
Ready for the hats? Outline them with your blue, green and pink icing.
Now you are ready to outline the scarfs. I used the wings as guidelines.
Next, flood the hats.
Next, you can flood the scarf all but end that comes from over the top of the scarf.
Let the small end and the horizontal part of the scarf dry so when you flood the last tail it will look a little 3D. Drying time should be at least 30 minutes.
While you are waiting on that you can add the orange dots for the toes. I know penguins don’t have toes but it needed a little something don’t you think?
If it has been 30 minutes, use your #3 tip and flood the rest of the scarfs. Do this on all 3 penguins and let it dry a little.
Now using the outline icings we are going to make the hat and scarfs look knitted. This is so easy! All you need to do is start at the base of the hat and make a slightly squiggly line. Move to the next row and do it again and again until you have reached the top.
Now repeat on the scarfs. I wish knitting was this easy!
Now comes the hard part, WAIT! Let this dry overnight. I know that is really hard to do but, since you are using black and white next to each other, there is chance your icing could bleed. (I live where it is humid and the humidity affects royal icing in a bad way.)
This is one of the penguin cookies I made with Johnna. See the nose and the green scarf ? It bled. Made me sad! But he was still delicious. Instead of eating him, you could fix it in a very creative way but that doesn’t always work! If it was the pink one we would be in trouble!
When they are good and dry use the black outline icing, outline the body and add the eyes. You could also use royal icing transfer eyes. I dotted each eye with a touch of flood white icing on a toothpick. Add the noses with the orange icing.
Next, with black flood icing fill the bodies in and let dry for about a few hours.
All you need to do now is add the fur. I used the #16 tip and the stiffer white icing. To do the hat band I used the same squiggly motion I used for the knitting. And now for the swirl on top, I imagined putting icing on a mini cupcake. Do a little swirl.
I hope you have as much fun making these as I did with Johnna.
Happy Creating!!!
Awesome cookies! Love them! You are so creative!
These are adorable! I am going to definitely going to try these.
Love them! Yours turned out so much cuter than mine. And superior photography skills I might add! 🙂 I had so much fun decorating with you. We have to do it again SOON.
Love these cute penguins! Congrats on your new blog… looks fantastic! It looks so pro… and you are a natural blogger 🙂
Congratulations on your blog, Lisa!!! I LOVE IT!! 🙂 And truly a fabulous post… those penguin cookies turned out so beautifully and insanely adorable! <3
Well, look at you starting a gorgeous blog!! So fun!! These penguins are SOO cute, and all the step-by-steps are great!!
Thanks Brandi, I got the cutter at Michael’s http://www.michaels.com/.
I thought I would tell you that I love your cookies
I love the step-by-step instructions. Thank you for sharing your creativity with us!! 🙂 look forward to many more!
You are so very creative, it is just amazing to see what someone can do with a cookie cutter! By the way where did you get this one?
Lynn
I got it at Michael’s Craft Store. It is part of their Celebrate It collection.
I have this cookie cutter! I bought it at Michaels and have had it sitting on my shelf not sure what on earth to make of it. You figured it out for me! I LOVE this! LOVE LOVE LOVE your awesome tutorial! Thanks so much!
This little guy is SUPER cute, too! It’s awesome to see the step-by-step. I never would have thought that is the order you do it in! Some great tips for a new cookier like me! 🙂
Love your blog. Been an admirer on Flickr for a long time. Your work is spectacular as always.
geez. i seriously. cannot. wait. to. make. these. WOW! lol
Absolutely LOVE these! Saw your adoreable snowman cookies via a Facebook link on Haniela’s and Karen’sCookies.net. You are incredible!
I am a flickr fan, too!
I saw that cutter at Michaels and I just thought, “what in the world”…..I don’t quite have “cookie think” yet, but I’m getting close!
I love your new blog!
I love your cookies. They’re absolutely gorgeous!
Oh my gosh I just found this cutter at my Michael’s last night. I got it for like $0.29! I am so making these for my daughter’s class for Valentins. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the tutorial. New fan from Sugarbelle.
Just picked this cutter up at Michael’s on sale, can’t wait to use it now.
What kind of icing is this u used?
I use Antonis Royal Icing. Here is the link to the recipe: http://thebearfootbaker.com/2011/12/antonis-royal-icing/
I am so EXCITED AND PLEASED!! I finally found the Celebrate It Elf Face Cookie Cutter on Ebay and received it in today’s mail.
I am so glad you got! The cutter is so cute and I see several cookie designs when I look at it! Hope you enjoy it=)
Hi. I absolutely love these cookies. I was wondering is the cutter from celebrate it or wiltons? I cant seem to find it . Could someone help me out please? Is this cutter metal, plastic, how big? Any help will be appreciated. Just came across this site and your cookies are so amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to do tutorials they are wonderful!!!
Cant wait to get started in the cookie decorating journey.
The cutter came from Celebrate it at Michaels. It is about 5″ so to me it is a big cutter but, not so big that I wouldn’t use it.
Hi, I started decorating about a month or so ago and have had a problem with the black royal icing… it seems to either not be dark enough or if I can get it black black, it tastes terrible. How do you get around this?? I hate to make cookies that don’t taste as good as they look! Any suggestions would be much appreciated! Thanks!
Hi Jamie. I think this is a problem we have all experienced. I use leftover icing (that is still fresh) and mix all my dark colors together. It usually looks like a dark weird muddy color. You created a deep base color and then it doesn’t take as much black food coloring. I always make my icing the night before because it deepens a bit over night. Hope this helps:)
These are way too cute!
I just stumbled on your site from Sweet Sugarbelle and I can’t stop clicking through your posts! These penguins are especially cute. Thanks for the inspiration!
YES YES YES, I just found this cutter on Ebay..I have a bake sale on the 14th and these would be so cute to sell during that time THanks for the tutorial!!
I JUST LOVE ALL OF IT. SO AMAZING
Thank you
Johnna
These are as adorable as they come and, look, they are sitting in snow! it’s those little details that just make me shiver with delight!
Would I be able to freeze them after decorating them? If I were to include them in my cookie gift box, would the frosting stay nice? Any tips on the storing and delivering would be much appreciated!
Hi Karen! The icing dries hard so packing them should not be a problem. I have never froze decorated cookies but, Bake at 350 did a post on it here: http://bakeat350.blogspot.com/2012/05/yes-you-can-freeze-decorated.html
Hope this helps!
Hi Lisa. I can’t find this cookie cutter. I would like to make my own cookie cutter. Can you send me a picture of the cookie cutter itself please? I have looked all over on line and can’t find it. Wilton says that it is discontinued. Thank you.
I couldn’t find the cookie cutter either, but I bought this one from Amazon and it worked out pretty good http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00295QDUA/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
You make it look so simple! Totally loves these penguins 🙂
Thank you so much for this tutorial. I followed it to make cookies for my son’s penguin birthday party. I linked to you on http://twosillyboys.blogspot.com/
Wow Lisa,
I have spent the whole morning browsing on your site. You are just incredibly talented. Going to attempt making these for the holidays!
Awe! You are so sweet Asmita! Thanks for taking the time to look around. I have a post coming up soon about this cutter. People can’t find it and I have a little trick to share:)
You made a comment regarding the penguin cookie cutter. I have searched high and low and cannot find it anywhere. What is your little trick? I can’t find any posts on it. Please help! I would love to make these cute little cookies for xmas!
Hi Darla,
Truly Mad Plastics make a cutter that is almost identical to the cutter I used in this tutorial. You can find it here: http://www.trulymadplastics.com/store/#!/Penguin-01/p/33344482
OMG,
How cute are these!
Hello! These are so cute! I’m sorry if I missed this part, but how do I find this type of cookie cutter? Thanks!
Hi Keisha,
For some reason, the link wasn’t working. You can find a cutter that looks a lot like this one at Truly Mad Plastics. Here is the link:https://trulymadplastics.com/Penguin-01-p33344482