Decorated Polar Bear Cookies
In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of bears on this blog because I am a bit obsessed with them. I love turning my favorite animals into treats, but the problem I have been having is trying to finding the perfect cookie cutter to make them. Until now I have been using a baby cookie cutter and hand cutting little pieces of cookie dough to use as ears. Well, all of that is in the past because The Cookie Cutter Kingdom has made the cutter I have been waiting for. I used it to make these decorated polar bear cookies and I couldn’t be happier.
Look at the shape of this bear. There are so many different animals you could make if you trace the cutter on a piece of paper add draw for a little while. I see at least four animals, but my favorite is a koala bear. Flip the cutter upside down and take a look. Do you see it now?
This is a perfect example of how you can take one cutter and make many different cookie designs with one simple shape. Have you had enough of flipping cookie cutters around and imagining what cookies they could become? Let’s make a few polar bear cookies because they’re pretty cute cookies.
Supplies for Decorated Polar Bear Cookies:
(contains affiliate links)
Recipes:
(choose from one of my recipes if you’d like)
Royal Icing Recipe
(here is my recipe for half a batch or full batch of royal icing)
Royal Icing Colors:
White 15 Second Icing
Yellow for the Stars
Red or Pink Food Gel Colors and a Paint Brush for the Ears
Cutter:
Cute Polar Bear Cookie Cutter – I used the 3″
Star Cookie Cutter
Fish Cookie Cutter
Tools:
Decorating Bags or Bottles or Tipless Piping Bags
Couplers
#2 PME Decorating Tips, #2.5 PME Decorating Tip or #3 PME Decorating Tips – you can use Wilton or Ateco tips, I prefer PME Decorating Tip
Black Jelly Beans
4 mm Black Pearl Dragees
Paint Brush
Toothpick
- Begin by outlining and flooding the polar bear cookie with the white icing and let it dry for a few hours.
- Next, paint inside of the ears pink and we’ll talk a little more about that in a minute.
- Pipe a little white icing onto the tummy of the bear cookie and use a paintbrush to tap the icing around so it will look like fur.
- Let’s give this bear a little more personality by outlining and flooding the head and feet with white royal icing.
- Let it dry for about 10-20 minutes.
- Next, outline and flood the arms so they’ll stand out a little.
- Let the cookies dry completely before you add the fur or you could accidentally cave the royal icing in. It’s probably best if you let this part dry overnight so you can tap the brush to make the fur without worrying about breaking the icing.
Let’s take a closer look at how to add the pink to the inside of the ears because bear ears are super cute.
Painting on a cookie is a lot like painting with watercolors because it’s simple.
Here are a few tips that will help you.
- Dry food gel colors work really well as Arty McGoo has taught us and she is so right. She suggests using Wilton and I totally agree because it seems to work a little better.
- Be careful with the amount of water you use because too much can cause the base coat of royal icing to dissolve.
- Make sure the base coat of the icing is completely dry before you begin painting.
Time to paint:
- Dip your paintbrush into some water and place it on a paper towel to remove some of the water.
- Dip the brush into some dried food gel color and paint the inside of the ears. When I say dried food gel color I mean place some of your food gel on a dish and let it dry for a day or so because it works better than wet food gel.
- Adding the fur takes a little more time than just flooding and outlining a cookie. It is another step but totally worth it when making cute little decorated polar bear cookies.
- Pipe a little icing onto the area you want to cover with fur.
- Use a dry paintbrush to gently tap the icing.
- Continue until the area is covered
- While the icing is wet, add the Jelly Bean nose.
- While the icing is wet, add the 4mm black dragees for the eyes.
- Use a toothpick, scribe tool or turkey lacer to remove the fur from the different sections of the bear. This will help give your little decorated polar bear cookies some definition.
- Repeat the process for the feet.
- Add one Jelly Bean and 4 4mm dragees for the toes.
All done!
Remember the simple penguin cookies from the other day? I told you I used the fish cookies in another set of cookies and I promise I won’t use them in every set, but once you make them, you’ll want to make them again and again.
Grab some of your cookie cutters and flip them around trace them onto some paper to see how many different designs you can make. I bet you will be surprised how many you can get from one cutter because nothing is stopping you.
More Polar Bear Treats:
Celebrate the Snow With Polar Bear Cookies by Sweet Sugar Belle
Polar Teddy Bear Cookies by Make Me Cake Me
Easy Polar Bear Cookies by Sweet Sugar Belle
Polar Bear Cookies
Simple Polar Bear Cookies
Easy Polar Bear Cookies
Bear hugs,
Love their sweet look! And thanks for the shout out on my polar teddies 🙂 xo Lisa!
Lisa, these guys are sooo cute! I am definitely going to try these…..AFTER the holidays. 🙂
I see a tree frog (or any frog). With the cutter in the “Koala” position, the koala ears become the bulging eyes of the frog as he squats waiting for dinner to get too close.
And it could be because I’ve only had one cup of coffee, but when the cutter is turned the “correct” way, I see a large headed critter sitting on top of a bicycle with wonky tires.
Don’t worry….I’m headed toward my Keurig to brew another cup as soon as I send this.
Have a great weekend. Could you send some of your snow to Missouri? We are expecting low 60’s on both Christmas Eve and Day, and that is unacceptable in my book.
These are so sweet and adorable! I love using candies on treats for that 3D look. The jelly beans..along with your piping skills..are perfect! I’m glad you found your favorite cookie cutter. Love these Lisa. 🙂
The polar bears really are the cutest little things!
Thanks! 😉
Dear Lisa,
I loved your tutorial of the Polar Bear 🐻. I am making my first baby shower cookies order and these little ones are the star of the show.
How do you store your cookies before decorating ? This is a busy baking season and I am starting to have more orders.
How long does a sugar cookie keeps fresh?
Thank you in advance for your time,
Have a blessed day,
Jimena
Hi Jimena,
Thank you for the polar bear cookie love. I’m a little fond of bears, can you tell? LOL
Let’s talk about sugar cookie safety. I store my sugar cookies in a gallon Ziploc bag in layers divided with parchment paper. I can usually get eight or nine cookie on each layer and about three layers per bag. They last a while but I usually just leave them in overnight. I like fresh cookies so the fresher the better but I bet they could stay in there for several days.
Now decorated sugar cookies are a special kind of cookie. They say they’ll stay fresh for a month. I know some bakers who make their cookies a few weeks ahead of time and that they stay fresh and taste well. I personally like to keep mine only for a week because I like things to be fresh.
I hope this helps. Happy baking!
Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!