And for the Record, I've Always Hated Your Choreography. It's so... 80's

Disney Classic # 46 - The Wild

The Wild was another movie which I'd never seen (and now wish that I hadn't!) so rather than come up with an ingenious plan for a dessert... I decided to go with the obvious: Animal Crackers, (or animal shaped biscuits, as it turned out!)

Looking at the DVD cover, I saw that there was a lion, a giraffe, an alligator, a koala, a snake and a squirrel... so when I found a packet of Animal Safari Cookie Cutters from the Natural History Museum containing lion, giraffe and alligator cookie cutters, I thought I was on to a winner.

Now I'm sure I could be forgiven for thinking that the recipe on the back of the packet would be a recipe for the sort of cookie dough that would maintain it's shape once baked - it really didn't. I think I managed to get one or two biscuits in each shape which looked the way they were supposed to, but most of the cookies just ended up looking like misshapen blobs. So much so that half way through baking I gave up with the cookie cutters and just rolled the dough into balls to make nice round biscuits. Both the blobs and the round biscuits tasted delicious! Anyways, this was the recipe from the back of the packet (I substituted the orange juice for lemon juice, as that's all I had in!)


Prep time: 20 mins plus 3 hours chill time
Cook time: 10-12 minutes per batch
Makes around 40 biscuits of various shapes/sizes
Ingredients:
225g butter
200g granulated sugar
1 medium egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons orange juice (I used lemon)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
285g plain flour

1. Using an electric mixer, mix together the butter, sugar, egg, baking powder, orange juice and vanilla extract until fluffy, then gradually stir in the flour by hand until well mixed.
2. Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge to chill for at least 3 hours.
3. After 3 hours, remove the dough from the clingfilm and knead slightly until ready to roll out.
4. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
5. Roll out the dough a little at a time (I did mine in 4 batches) until about half a cm thick. Cut shapes out with your cutters, and place on the baking tray. (Alternatively, it you're making round biscuit, roll the dough into smallish balls and place on a baking tray. Flatten slightly with your fingers, making sure to leave plenty of space between each ball for the dough to spread.)
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown, then remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray slightly before transferring to a wire wrack to cool.
7. Laugh manically as you bite off each animal's head. Mwahahaha!

Next time we're watching Meet the Robinsons, and we'll be making a group attempt at building Tiny the T-Rex out of Rice Krispies, marshmallows and chocolate!!.

Happy Thoughts
x