Or should I say fat llama cookie, because that's exactly what they ended up being.
Here's the deal with this cookie, they look cute, but they will never ever be as much fun as this picture leads one to believe.
I'm not going to lie. I was sucked into this cookie idea from the moment I saw it, and I knew I needed to try this one! I mean, it's a piñata cookie with magical candy fiilings!
So here's how I attempted this cookie.
Part of the Pinterest post shows then layering this in a long Tupperware lined with cling wrap.
I'm not going to lie. This bastard needs a lot of dough to complete. And I cheated. I bought 4 packages of the Betty Crocker sugar cookie dough (as far as cut out cookies go, it's very reliable). Each bag is supposed to make 3 dozen cookies. Now unless this is 3 dozen quarter sized sugar cookies this is also a lie.
So I made all four bags of sugar cookie dough, split them into 6 large balls of dough, and dyed then with neon food coloring. (Pink, teal, green, and purple) I also did red and yellow from the regular food dye packs.
I layered them all up in this Tupperware. Thing was like a sugar cookie meatloaf when it was done. A sugar cookie Godzilla if you will. It was HEAVY! Popped it in the fridge for a few hours and then went to town.
Now for anyone who bakes the key to a perfect sugar cookie is to get an even 1/8" cookie. You can not slice this sugar brick into such thin slices, it's to hard after being in the fridge. So you cut maybe a 1/2" slice and roll it out. Then you cut your shape out.
Now admittedly I tried to find a donkey cookie cutter EVERYWHERE. Including amazon, and when I received my package in the mail my donkey was hilariously only 1/2" tall. Needless to say, I ended up with a horse cutter.
I cut out three horses per cookie. On horse facing the right, one facing the left(this is extremely important, or you will have one funky looking side!), and one horse where I mutilated it's body by cutting off the legs, and it's inner stomach. This is what holds the mini m&m's.
Following the directions on the sugar cookie package I baked them for the appropriate amount of time. After pulling them out I notice instead of nice looking horses they were bloated llamas. Whatever... I like llamas. Trying to make the best of the situations I went to town on frosting the mutiliated pony in top of a whole pony. Once assembled fill the now divot in the ponies with the mini m&m's.
After that's done add the other whole horse.
And voila! Now I added sugar Googly eyes to them, for my own pleasure. Because I just thought they looked hysterical with eyes.
Now my husband loved them, but they're cookies. Cookie always taste good! What irked me was the presentation. I wanted cute little piñatas and what I got was fat bloated llamas.
I guess it's still a Pinterest pass. But they could be improved. Here's a list of what the recipe doesn't tell you but you should now.
1) you don't need a whole casserole sized Tupperware filled with cookie dough. like the Pinterest post shoes! I froze over half of mine! Cut it down to those square tupperwares and layer it up.
2) you don't need to fill that Tupperware up to the height of your cookie cutter! Because most likely you won't be getting that perfect 1/8" slice. Save yourself some time and money and just fill half way. You'll be using a rolling pin anyways. And typically you'll get two shapes out of one slice
3) adding eyes totally makes these better!
4) the pictures on Pinterest is misleading. This is in fact no way you can fit that many mini m&m's in there. At the most maybe 8 mini pieces. That's it. Totally not as much fun as they looked.
5) the middles slice does not need to be pretty. no one is going to see it! Use all the left over dough from the whole horses and roll it out and use that for your middle slice. COST EFFICTVENESS HERE!!
On the bright side they stand up on their own 4 legs!
