Hippo cookies

My mum loves hippos. And I mean LOVES hippos. We've got hippo ornaments, wood carvings, place mats, salt and pepper shakers, toys - figurine and plushies, earrings, statues and mugs. Each one is beautiful and anatomically correct - she critics the facial structure of each hippo before she decides on the "best looking". They are only rivaled by her love of Helmeted guinea fowl. Anyway, I was meant to post this a LONG time ago. For Mother's Day (in May), I made and decorated some hippo cookies for her!!!

I used a Sugar cookie recipe provided below:

Deliberately spelt incorrectly; "Ama" = family name for "mum"

Recipe:

1 cup Unsalted butter; leave out of fridge to soften, then cube
1 cup Castor sugar
2 Eggs
1 tbs Vanilla extract
3 cup Plain flour
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking soda

Combine the butter and sugar and mix until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and add vanilla; mix well. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, salt and baking soda. Blend flour mixture to buttery mixture. Wrap dough in cling wrap. Chill for ~1 hour minimum.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

Divide the dough into manageable pieces and roll out on a lightly floured surface to .5cm. I place baking paper on top on the dough so I don't have dough sticking to the rolling pin. Get any shaped cookie cutter and cut into rolled dough. Place on a sheet of baking paper on a tray and place in oven.

Bake for 5 to 8 minutes or until the cookies are golden at the edges. Thoroughly cool cookies before decorating. I used writing icing in various colours - special edible glitter ones add some sparkle and magic :)