Cheesy Bunny Crackers Recipe
Like something more savoury than sweet when the hunger pangs hit and all you can see is chocolate at Easter time? Then look no further than these Cheesy Bunny Crackers this Easter. A great edition to jazz up a platter and seriously fab on their own. You won't be able to stop at one that's for sure so you might want to cook a double batch straight up!
I used currants to decorate my little cheesy bunnies and I love how chewy and sweet the little currants are after being cooked. YUM! Writing about this is making me hungry for more. Miss 3 helped me make them and decorate them oh and also eat them. We will be making these again for Easter for sure.
The below recipe for Cheesy Bunny Biscuits is based on the recipe from Louise Fulton Keat's website and you can check it out here. These delicious cheese crackers remind me a lot of a childhood favourite of mine, good ol' Cheds.
INGREDIENTS
1¼ cups (175g) plain flour
¾ cup (60g) grated parmesan
½ cup (60g) grated cheddar
½ teaspoon paprika
125g butter, cut into cubes
½ - 1 tablespoon cold water
Sultanas, cut in half, or currants for decorating (to make eyes - optional)
Sesame seeds to decorate the tail and body (optional)
METHOD
Place the flour, cheeses and paprika in the bowl of a food processor and whiz for a few seconds just until mixed. Add the butter cubes and ½ TBS water and process, turning on and off frequently, until the mixture starts to ball around the blade. If the mixture is a bit dry add another ½ TBS water and pulse again.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead very lightly. Halve the mixture and roll out to 5 or 6mm thickness between 2 sheets of baking paper. Place in the refrigerator to chill for 1 hour.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180°C and line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Cut out shapes with a bunny-shaped biscuit cutter and place on the prepared trays. You can re-roll and chill the leftover dough and repeat the cutting process until you have used it all. Pop on the sultanas or currants on to make eyes and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Bake for about 8 minutes, until lightly golden and crisp. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Store in an airtight container for up to a week (they won't last that long!).
Both of the cutters I used to create these bunny crackers are below.
Our mini rabbit cookie cutter is the perfect size for some bite sized super cute treats.
And the star of the cheesy cookie show is our baby rabbit cookie cutter. Not such a baby in size at 7cm wide. Perfect size for crackers!
Valentine's Day Stained Glass Window Cookies
STAINED GLASS WINDOW COOKIES
Just in time for Valentine's Day.
INGREDIENTS
125 grams butter
150 grams caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
300 grams plain flour
1 TBS water
Cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Add the water and then flour and mix until the dough comes together. Knead dough lightly on bench until you have a smooth dough. If it is not coming together easily add a little more water. If it is too sticky use a little more flour on your bench to knead the dough.
THERMOMIX:
Pop all ingredients in and mix on speed 5 for 30 seconds.
Roll the dough out between two sheets of baking paper (or silicone mats) to between 3-4mm thick (the thinner you roll them the more crisp the cookies with be when cooked) and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Cut out the cookie shapes and transfer them to a cookie sheet lined with baking paper. Pop in the fridge to chill while you prepare the lollies.
Carefully sprinkle some of the crushed lollies inside the cookie cutouts. I found the more lollies that were in there the better but be careful not to spill too much onto the sides of the cutouts as they will seep in a bit. They will still look great though! Patience is key at this point.
Bake in preheated oven at about 160 degrees celcius for approximately 8-10 minutes depending on the size of your cookies. Leave them to cool on the baking sheet so the lolly centres can set properly. 
These were really easy to make. The only thing I would do differently next time is to add more crushed lollies into the cutouts as the ones with more in them came out much nicer.
Happy baking!
Cookie Share ~ All The Way From Lithuania!
One of my favourite parts of having our business is having our customers share with us their creations made using our cookie cutters. The shares come from all over the world but this one was the first one from Lithuania. Nida shared her gorgeous baking creations with us and they are also on her blog which you can check out here for more cooking inspiration. Nida's photos look like they are straight out of a food magazine and probably for good reason to - Nida has written an award winning cookbook "A Taste Of Israel: From Classic Litvak to Modern Israeli."
And her little deer gingerbread cookies atop a delicious looking cheesecake.
Nida got her inspiration for these creations from the Christmas 2016 issue of donna hay magazine. Cookie cutters and magazine from Australia to Lithuania. The internet really makes the world such a small place.
I hope you love these images and Nida's blog as much as I do. The link to her cookbook is here if you are interested in checking it out.
Happy baking!
- Lisa x
Australia Shaped Mini Pizzas
Are you planning an Australia Day gathering? We have a really simple idea for some snacks you can prepare in advance and reheat or simply serve cold on the day. Australia Day Pizzas! You can top yours with whatever you fancy. We made ham and cheese for our three year old (we would have made Hawaiian if we had pineapple on hand) and meat lovers as I thought these were Aussie flavours.
We made our pizza dough, rolled it out quite thinly and then used our 9cm wide Australia map cookie cutter to cut out the shapes, transferred them to a tray lined with baking paper, popped our toppings on and then cooked. We cooked them for about 6 minutes at 220 degrees celcius.
Our 3 year old actually put her own toppings on and I think she did a great job.
And here are the meatlovers ones with BBQ sauce, salami, ham and cheese.
And the finished product below.
We would love to see pics of your pizza creations. What flavours would you like to make?
Happy Australia Day!
- Lisa x
Top 20 Cookie Cutters of 2016
As 2016 draws to a close I thought it would be fun to review our most popular cookie cutters of the last year. There are quite a few that featured in the donna hay Christmas issue in the list and lots of different sized dog bones so there must be lots of pampered pooches out there as well as Paw Patrol themed parties. A couple of surprises in the list including a bat and a baby suit. I will let you check out the rest yourself.
Imaginary drum roll please..... here is the list of our best sellers for 2016...
No 1 - Deer 7cm Cookie Cutter
Popular at Christmas but also throughout the year this cute little cutter is heading out the door most days. Lisa's favourite cutter and it appears it's everyone elses also. I wonder if it will top the list for the third year in a row in 2017?
No 2 - Deer 5cm Cookie Cutter
No 3 - Mini Bone 5cm Cookie Cutter
No 4 - 3D Mini Gingerbread House Cookie Cutter from Sweet Creations
No 5 - Paw Print with Embossed Detail 7cm Cookie Cutter
No 6 - Deer Antlers 11cm Cookie Cutter
No 7 - Snowman 8.5cm Cookie Cutter
No 8 - Dog Bone 6cm Cookie Cutter
No 9 - Christmas Fir Tree 9cm Cookie Cutter
No 10 - Mini Teddy Bear Cookie Cutter
No 11 - Embossing Letter and Number Set
No 12 - Baby Suit 10cm Cookie Cutter
No 13 - Number 1 Tin Plate Cookie Cutter
No 14 - Elephant Cookie Cutter
No 15 - Large Numbers 7cm Cookie Cutter Set
No 16 - Bone 10cm Cookie Cutter
No 17 - Paw Print Mini Cookie Cutter
No 18 - Classic Number 1 Cookie Cutter
No 19 - Set of 5 Mini Australian Themed Cookie Cutters
No 20 - Bat 8cm Cookie Cutter
Cookie Cutting Tips & Tricks - Using Detailed or Small Cookie Cutters
Tips and tricks to cutting out really small, embossed or highly detailed cookies with our cookie cutters.
We sometimes get queries on using some of our trickier cookie cutters. Sometimes there is trouble cutting out the cookie with a cutter with embossed details without it separating into pieces, sometimes the dough just won’t come away in the narrow sections of the cutter. We have been there, done that! Here are our tips to get a great result with these cookie cutters. They may seem a bit more tedious or time consuming to use but we think the end result is so worth it! Once you get the hang of it there’ll be no looking back!
- Roll your dough out between two sheets of baking or parchment paper and roll it a bit thinner. 4 or 5mm should work well.
- Refrigerate your rolled out dough for as long as possible. At least an hour but longer if possible, overnight would be ideal. The more chilled the dough is the firmer and easier it is to work with. I can’t stress this enough and believe this is the most important step.
- With the sharp side of the cutter facing down press firmly into the dough.
- Use the blunt end of a toothpick, a plastic fork or something similar to carefully tease the tricky, small sections out first. If you concentrate of these areas first the rest of the cookie should fall away easily from the cutter.
- If dough becomes sticky, re-refrigerate it. Also after re-rolling the dough, refrigerate it again.
- I also refrigerate my cookies between roll-outs and before cooking to help them keep their sharp cut-out edge and shape.
- Using a dough with a high butter content can help as this extra grease helps the dough to come away from the cutter more easily.
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Bake for 8-15 minutes (the time varies greatly depending on the size of the cookie or biscuit), once out the oven, place on a wire rack to cool. When the biscuits have completely cooled down, they are ready for icing. Using the indentation as a guide, you are now ready to get creative.
I hope these tips help you and if you have any others that work for you we would love to hear from you.
Happy baking!
- Lisa
Using Plain Cookie Cutters To Create Embossed Cookies
Looking for a little inspiration? Want to create something a little bit different with the cookie cutters you already have in your collection? Think outside the box a little and use your cutters to emboss their shapes into larger cookies! You can either hand cut out some simple rectangles or squares for a more rustic look and then emboss your choice of cutter inside the cutout, like our little deer below.
Or you can cut out the larger shape and emboss the smaller shape inside as we have done with our six pointed stars and also our crinkled rectangle and 5cm deer cookie cutter, below.
We would love to see photos of your cookie cutter creations.
Happy baking!
Lisa x
