How to Make Polar Animal Cookies

Happy New Year!! I hope everyone had (and is continuing to have) a blissful holiday season. I usually like to unwind and recharge during the week between Christmas and New Years. Because I tend to take it easy at year's end, making cookies for New Year's Eve celebrations doesn't happen often for me. However, I was able to fit in a general, winter-themed design for this time of year. Futhermore, as an added bonus, I think this design would even work for the next major holiday, Valentine's Day! Here's clever way on how you can make 3 different versions of polar animal cookies!

Polar Animal Cookie Cutter

I've added five new Valentine's Day cookie cutters to the shop, one being is this polar animal cookie cutter.

This is a fun cutter because it's highly customizable. The design is of a polar animal's head popping up from a hole in an iceberg platform. Pretty straight forward, right? However, the real kicker is how you decorate the head! For example, I'll show three ways this design can be anything from a polar bear, a penguin, or a walrus.

Additionally, the LARGE size of this polar animal cookie cutter is sized to fit as a single cookie favor in a 4"x4" gift box, or as part of a pair in a larger 7"x4.25" gift box.

Template for the Polar Animal Cookies

I provided a downloadable template for the design ideas shown in this tutorial. In the template file, I've included designs for the walrus, as well as the polar bear, and the penguin.

You can download the polar animal cookie templates HERE.

If you have a Kopykake or Pico projector, just print it out (or pull it up on your mobile device) and you are good to go. For those without a projector, follow the suggested steps below by cutting out the template and tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

The Decorating Process

In this tutorial, I'll guide you through the steps on how to decorate the polar animal cookies with the walrus design. However, the polar bear and penguin designs are very similar, so the decorating technique shown below can be applied to all the designs.

To make these polar animal cookies, you will need the following suggested colors:

• Light Blue thin, flood royal icing. (I used Americolor Sky Blue.)
• Ice Blue medium consistency icing. (I used the tiniest amount of Americolor Wedgewood.) You will need two shades of this, one slightly darker than the other, for the iceberg platform.
• White piping icing. (I used Americolor Bright White.)
• Red medium icing. (I used Americolor Super Red.)
• Brown medium consistency icing. (I used Americolor Chocolate Brown.)
• Dark Brown medium consistency icing. (I mixed Americolor Chocolate Brown with a tiny amount of Americolor Super Black.)
• Tan medium icing. (I used Americolor Ivory.)
• Black piping icing. (I used Americolor Super Black.)

Step 1

For those without a projector, mark guidelines where the iceberg platform top should be. I made a template with template plastic from the PDF file above and used a food marker to draw the guideline on the cookie.

Step 2

With light blue flood icing and a food-only paintbrush, paint a thin layer over the middle "hole" area of the iceberg, as shown below. Let the icing dry.

Step 3

Next, with the "darker shade" of ice blue icing, fill every other lower iceberg sections, as shown below. Let the icing dry (about 15 minutes). Then fill in the remaining sections. This will give the ice platform some added dimension. Let the icing set (about 30 minutes).

Step 4

With the "lighter shade" of ice blue icing, outline and fill the top area of the iceberg. Use the marker guidelines as a guide. Let this icing set for another 30 minutes.

Step 5

Once the iceberg icing had time to dry, add the walrus' head with brown icing, as shown below. Allow that icing to dry completely (about 1 hour).

After the brown icing has set, add the walrus' muzzle with dark brown icing, as well as the red details of the hat. Let the icing set.

Step 6

Finishing off the facial icing details, add the eyes and nose with black icing, the tusks with white icing, and fill the remaining hat band area with ivory icing. It's important to let the cookie dry completely (2 to 4 hours) before moving on.

Lastly, once you are certain the polar animal cookies are fully dry, add the few remaining details. I drew on hat lines with a food pen (Rainbow Dust pen in coffee color), as well as eye brows (with a black food pen). Then with extra ivory icing and a food-only paintbrush, add a "fur" texture to the band of the hat. (This step is probably best demonstrated in the video below.)

Video Tutorial

The decorating steps above are summarized in this time-lapsed video.

As I mentioned before, because of the general shape of the head, these polar animal cookies can be easily customized to have whatever face you desire. I created two additional polar animal designs, the polar bear and the penguin, that I included with this set. All three animal designs can be found in the downloadable template I made available.

Additionally, if you pair these polar animal cookies with a fun message cookie, you can give these away as the perfect Valentine's Day gift a friend or loved one would certainly enjoy.

I paired these polar animal cookies with a chunky heart cookie, which can be now found in my shop. The heart shape was purposely made wide and fat to fit as much text as possible. Also, these two cookies fit perfectly in these 7"x4.5" gift boxes by BRP Boxshop.

One last thing. For reference, the fonts I used in the heart message cookies are Grenouille and Ziggurat. They are my latest font combination obsession. You'll be sure to see this combo used in most of my Valentine cookie messaging this season. I have plenty of entertaining Valentine posts planned this week, so stay tuned for more fun and pun ideas to come!

Have a wonderful New Year!