Cookies Shaped Like Your Pets

Silly projects · 5 min read

Some people paint portraits of their pets. Some commission sculptures. We make cookies. There is something deeply funny — and weirdly touching — about spending three hours icing a cookie to look like your dog, only for the finished product to look like a dog the way a cloud looks like a dog. But you know what? The dog doesn't care. The dog is thrilled. You're holding a cookie.

This is your guide to immortalizing your furry (or scaly, or feathered) companions in sugar and royal icing. Manage your expectations: this is about the journey, not the likeness.

Step 1: Choose your sacrifice (subject)

Not all pets translate equally well to cookie form. Ranked by cookie-ability:

• Golden retrievers and labs. Easy mode. Round face, floppy ears, big happy eyes. If you can ice a circle, you can ice a golden.
• Cats. Medium. The triangle ears are the whole trick. Get the ears right and add whisker dots, and people will say "oh, a cat!" which is all you're asking for.
• Pugs, bulldogs, and other smoosh-faces. Ideal subjects. Their entire face is already a circle with wrinkles. Draw the wrinkles. Done.
• Hamsters and guinea pigs. Round blobs with ears. Honestly the cookie might look more accurate than your pet.
• Greyhounds, lizards, birds. Hard mode. You will need cookie cutters, patience, and a forgiving audience. Consider a plaque that says the pet's name, so people know what they're looking at.

Step 2: Gather your supplies

• Sugar cookie dough (your favorite recipe, chilled so it holds shapes)
• Round cookie cutters in a few sizes, plus any animal-ish cutters you own
• Royal icing in your pet's colors — black, white, brown, and whatever distinctive markings they have
• Piping bags or zip-top bags with a corner snipped
• Toothpicks for fine details and for dragging icing into place
• A reference photo of your pet. Propped up. They will not pose.

Step 3: The decorating (where the comedy happens)

1. Outline and flood. Pipe an outline around the cookie with thicker icing, then flood the middle with thinner icing and spread it with a toothpick. Let it dry. This is your canvas: a perfectly smooth circle that already looks like something, which is encouraging.
2. Ears. Add the ears — the single most important identifying feature. Triangles for cats, floppy ovals for dogs. The ears are what separates "cookie that looks like my cat" from "cookie."
3. Eyes and nose. Two dots and a triangle. Place them too close together and your pet looks worried. Too far apart and your pet looks philosophical. There is no wrong answer; there is only character.
4. Markings. Add the patches, spots, stripes, or that one white sock your dog has. This is where the magic happens — a random brown blob cookie becomes your brown blob cookie.
5. Whiskers and details. Thin lines for whiskers, a tiny tongue for dogs (because of course), maybe a collar in their favorite color. Stop before you overwork it. Royal icing forgives many things, but not fussing.

Embrace the inaccuracy

Your pet cookie will not look exactly like your pet. It might not look like the same species. That's fine. The point was never photorealism — the point is the ridiculous joy of handing someone a cookie and saying "it's Biscuit" while holding a cookie that looks, charitably, like a worried potato.

Some tips for maximum fun:

• Do it with friends. Everyone decorates their own pet cookie and then you all vote. The voting is the fun part.
• Photograph the reference next to the result. This diptych is comedy gold and will be treasured forever.
• Let kids help. Children have no interest in realism and will ice the cat purple with six eyes. Their cookies are always the best ones.
• Eat the evidence. If the cookie truly looks nothing like your pet, eat it. Deliciousness is the universal consolation prize.

A note on the pets themselves

One important safety note, delivered with love: these cookies are for the humans. Chocolate, xylitol (birch sugar), macadamia nuts, and large amounts of regular sugar are not safe for dogs, and many cookie ingredients aren't safe for cats or other pets. Admire your cookie, photograph it next to your pet for maximum comedic effect, then enjoy it yourself — and give your pet one of their own pet-safe treats for posing so beautifully (or for sleeping through the whole thing, which counts as posing).

So preheat the oven, pull up that photo of your very good boy or girl, and get decorating. The likeness may be dubious. The fun is guaranteed.

Next: the wobbliest desserts, ranked →