Elephant Baby Shower Cookies for Two Peas & Their Pod
Congratulations to Maria and Josh of Two Peas and Their Pod who are expecting their very own sweet pea very soon!
It's a very exciting time for these two talented bloggers, and thoughtful Marla {Family Fresh Cooking} and Lisa {With Style and Grace} wanted to make it extra special with a surprise virtual baby shower! They organized a host of wonderful food bloggers (see list below), to come together and surpise Maria and Josh with on-line sweets, savouries and crafts, in honor of the soon-to-be-here baby boy.
Surprise!
Maria and Josh, hope you like these cookies I made for you and your soon-to-arrive bundle of joy. I'm so happy for you both and send you well wishes and hugs.
With this virtual shower may you and your new baby feel the warm welcome that is being expressed by all of us in celebration of his arrival.
Virtual Baby Shower for Two Peas & Their Pod
Drinks
Simple Bites – Lemon Balm infused Lemonade
Ingredients, Inc. – Healthy Fruit Punch
Food for My Family – Lemongrass Soda
Heather's Dish – Mixed Fruit Punch
She Wears Many Hats – Mini Pistachio Smoothies
Appetizers/Savory Bites
With Style and Grace – Truffle Popcorn
Family Fresh Cooking – Baby Peas & Cheese Frittata
Barbara Bakes – Creamy Orange Fruit Dip and Fruit
Aggie’s Kitchen – Pasta Salad with Balsamic Basil Vinaigrette
Reluctant Entertainer – Nutella Berry Bruschetta
Dessert
Dorie Greenspan – French Lemon Cream Tart
TidyMom – Blue and Chocolate Cake Balls
i am baker – Baby Pea Baby Shower Cake
Brown Eyed Baker – Pavlova
Picky Palate – Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Sandwich
What’s Gaby Cooking – Coconut Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing
Cookin’ Canuck – Nutella & Cream Cheese Swirled Blondies
Kevin and Amanda – Baby Blue Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie Cups
Sweetopia – Decorated Sugar Cookies
Mountain Mama Cooks – Lavender Shortbread Cookies
Sweetapolita – Little Pea Sugar Cookie Pops
Bake at 350 – Petit Fours with fondant pea pods
RecipeGirl – Baby Button Cookies
RecipeBoy – Mud Cups with Gummy Worms
Add a Pinch – Blackberry Tartlets
Dine and Dish – Oven Baked Cinnamon Apples
Crafts
Wenderly – Handmade Sweet Pea Cards
Our Best Bites – How To: Make a Diaper Cake Centerpiece
If you'd like to make the decorated elephant cookies, here's how to make them:
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Welcome Baby Printables
Designed by the lovely Kim at The TomKat Studio, these ones are available for free. You can find them here. A big thanks to Kim for making them; they're so adorable and I can't wait to see the collection she creates around them!
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Sugar Cookie Dough
You can find the recipe for the dough here. The cookie cutter can be found here.
One tip for cutting out the elephant shapes; dip the cutter in flour first so that the dough slides out better, especially with a slim shape like the elephant trunk. I use a silicon pastry brush to dust off the excess flour.
Royal Icing
You can find my favorite royal icing recipe here. The consistency of icing is key for easy decorating. Click here to see a YouTube video on finding the right icing thickness.
Decorating Steps
What you'll need:
- Piping Tip #2
- Piping Bag
- Couplers
- Small fondant rolling pin
- Fondant and heart punch cutter (*Optional – Heart can be piped with icing)
- Gel paste colors
Step One:
Outline the elephant shape with royal icing. For detailed decorating tips, this tutorial may be helpful for you.
Step Two:
With the same icing, flood, or fill in your shape.
Step Three:
Let the base dry for at least 6-12 hours.
Step Four:
Add the ear by outlining and filling in right away.
Step Five:
Add a small black dot of icing for the eye. Let the ear and eye dry for a minimum of 6-12 hours.
Step Six:
Roll out your white fondant to about 2mm thick, and punch out a heart shape.
Step Seven:
Adhere fondant heart to ear with a dab of icing.
Done!
Sweet thanks to Niner of We Choose Organic for editing and re-sizing my photos; she did an awesome job with them, as the lighting was pretty bad (an on-going struggle for me with food photography… still learning!).
And if you haven't had the pleasure of viewing the delicious food and recipes the 'Two Peas' make, head on over and enjoy. You'll be there for quite a while!
Have fun!
xo,
Marian
p.s. If you'd like to never miss a post, and/or receive more tips on decorating, click on this button below to sign up for free:
Ohhhh how I love these cookies.
Lookin’ so so cute and adorable. I am sure Maria and Josh enjoy them a lot!
Great job Marian
xoxo
niner
How adorable!!! I love that elephant! What a lovely surprise virtual shower!
Oh, Marian! Those are absolutely precious and perfect!!!
These are beautiful!
These are so sweet, Marian, and I love the colours!
Those colors are gorgeous!!! And the elephants couldn’t be any more adorable!
These are just too cute!
my son adores elephants! I should try to make these for him one of these days
omg..these are soooooo adorable! love, love, love them
wish i had seen these for a baby shower order i just did! definitely going to download the link to the bag toppers as soon as you post! thanks for sharing (=
love these! Awesome!
These are the most gorgeous cookies ever! Nice work!
I don’t like these cookies, I LOVE THEM! They are so cute! Thank you so much! I have no words. You are all the best! xoxo
Oh my goodness these are absolutely adorable!! I love the packaging…and sending guests home with these is an awesome idea!
Your elephants are adorable!! Almost too cute to eat. I need to check out your links, my decorating needs a lot of work.
Those have to be the cutest little cookies I’ve ever seen. Seriously, you are very talented!
The most adorable little elephants ever!
Looking at ur cookies ,infeel I have long way to go
thy lok so good
How do you keep your cookies so clean and not browned after baking without them being still a bit raw?
Those elephants are so adorable!
Those are unbelievably cute! Love those elephants!
Absolute perfection! I love the colors, and your dough itself is BEAUTIFUL!
Cookies to me really make a shower. These are adorable. Thanks for sharing, love the elephants and the beautiful color of blue! (Bet they taste good, too!)
The cutest baby elephant ever!!
Thank you all so much for your comments!!
@ Shelley: Some of the tips in my ‘preventing dough from spreading’ post will help. It does depend on your oven too; I baked a thick set of cookies in the school’s gas oven today, and the cookies on the bottom rung got brown on the bottom, while the rest did not. This has never happened to me in my other school oven, nor my oven at home.
Marian, the amount of work you put into this gorgeous post is astonishing!! Gorgeous cookies and packaging. So happy you were able to join in the celebration
I love your little elephants and really love the packaging. Great tutorial too!
Love the elephants! They’re adorable. What a lovely idea for a baby shower!
Thanks for sharing.
Lovely elephant for a little one! The tag really makes the package.
Thanks Donna and everyone for the comments! =)
These cookies are so beautiful! Perfect for a newly born baby!!
love your cute Elephants… I asume it will be for a baby boy…..
you are so talented! I love your blog and work!
Every thing you do,is sooooo perfect!
ML
Those elephant cookies are the cutest thing ever!!! Brava again for such a fantastic job! Love your tutorials as usual! =) Have a great long weekend!
Soooooo cute!!! Love these Marian.
Absolutely Beautiful, Marian. I love these elephant cookies.
Hugs
Every time I see one of your amazing cookie posts with pictures and step my step instructions I feel more and more like the little Engine That Could…
I think I can I think I can I think I can….
I’m almost brave enough to try cookie decorating with royal icing. :
These are precious!!
@ Tara @ The Butter Dish: You can!! =)
Thanks everyone for your sweet comments! xo
These are perfect for jungle/safari theme baby showers. Beautifully done!
Very beautiful and easy for this occasion!
I liked very much!!
The whole package is so professional looking. You did such a great job!
Girl, you are so talented, these are incredible! You even have a step-by-step tutorial + printables, I’m so impressed! Oh, what I’d give to spend a day with you in the kitchen… awesome work, I’m completely smitten by it all!
Hello love your post!! Would you mind telling me were did you buy the heart cutter it is super nice. Great job xx Mel
@ Melissa:
No problem, on amazon. Just search heart plunger cutter on Amazon.
Hi Marian, these cookies are awesome. Can you please share how you got the icing colours to match the printed pictures exactly?
@ Caz: I just had to keep adding color, bit by bit, until I was satisfied with the outcome. I used Americolor electric green and sky blue. It still doesnt match exactly though.
You are such a perfectionist! lol. Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge. I’m still in the process of trying to get my royal icing just right. I have a template of pics for inspiration and I’m going to try my first cookie project. Very excited. Just hope it’s not a disaster hehe.
Very sweet. I just loved the Virtual Baby Shower it was such a great idea with so many talented artists involved. I think your photo’s are pretty good, even though I have a light tent mine still seem to be dependent on the weather to look anywhere near reasonable.
They are so cute..I love the little heart you put on the ear, so sweet…awesome job as always!!!!
Are those not the cutest little things? Loving those sweet chubby little elephants.
I don’t know if you are using one already, but it’s super easy to make your own light box for pictures. You can make one for under $50.
Here’s a link: http://www.studiolighting.net/homemade-light-box-for-product-photography/
The elephants are adorable
They have inspired me to make a whole zoo of animal sugar cookies!
I’m going to attempt these for a baby shower that I’m planning. I love the added heart touch! Can these cookies be made ahead of time, so you can freeze them and decorate the day before? This will be my 1st attempt at any cookie favor…I better have a back up plan!