I’m an impulse shopper, especially when it comes to kitchen gadgets and products. If you show me something pretty, shiny, or god forbid pink and it somehow relates to cooking than I absolutely have to possess it. So when I got a new product email from Williams-Sonoma last week featuring animal crackers on parade and the promise of making them in my own home I went temporarily insane and made a beeline straight to the store to pick up the cookie cutters and a mix to try at home.
In some ways these purchases remind me of the way it used to feel when I was a kid and I would successfully talk my mom into buying me yet another She-Ra doll even though someone really should have put up a “no vacancy” sign at the Crystal Castle long ago. The fictional inhabitants of the Whispering Woods were already experiencing some serious overflow into my Victorian dollhouse, and the dollhouse dwellers were unimpressed cohabiting with a group of buxom, pastel haired gladiators. Or so I would imagine… but I had to have more!
Today I decided to test out the animal cracker kit so I mixed up the dough, chilled it, and cut out the cute little circus shapes. I had a hard time at first. The lions were being stubborn and I broke a lot of the giraffes’ necks, but somehow via some miracle I didn’t have a fit and I got everything cut out, chilled again, and properly baked. The cookie mix was very good. It almost tastes exactly like animal crackers from the store. The clerk at Williams-Sonoma told me that he had tested the mix as well and he thought the baked cookies tasted like the animal crackers he ate as a kid, which apparently are not how animal crackers taste now. While I can remember copious details about She-Ra, I’m at a loss when it comes to flavor memory so I’ll take his word for it.
I think that kids would love making these! I don’t have any, but I have a CK and he happily munched a small plate with a glass of milk. So now I own animal cracker cookie cutters forever and ever. Who thinks I’ll ever use them again?
Note: Just so that you’re aware, if you purchase the cookie cutters the back of the circus car shaped box has a recipe on it so you don’t necessarily have to purchase a pre-made mix.
