Circus Animal Cookies
Your childhood favorite snack is now transformed into a big delicious cookie. These circus animal cookies are fun and surprisingly easy to make.
The Story Behind Circus Animal Cookies
I am always brainstorming ideas on food and desserts to make. Typically, I will write down the ideas in my little notebook, but this particular idea never made it in there.
Occasionally, I will have an idea surface that I fall in love with. I’m not able to make anything else until I get the particular idea made. This was definitely the case when I had the idea to make a giant cookie with circus animal crackers.
When I was younger, I loved to snack on the circus animal crackers. In fact, when I was in college, I remember snacking on them during my early-morning job at 7am. The sweet cracker just got my juices flowing, ya know?
When the idea hit to make a cookie with circus animal cracker, I immediately when to the store to buy ingredients. However, before I could actually bake them, I saw that a local cookie shop launched this exact flavor for the week. I was a little bummed because I thought I had an original idea. That’s okay. It just solidified that it was a good choice. So if you are in need of a Chip copycat Circus Animal Cookie, this is it!
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Circus Animal Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter, cold (1 stick)
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¾ cup cake flour
- 1¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp nonpareil sprinkles plus more for decorating the tops
- 2 cups circus animal crackers
- 1 cup Ghirardelli White Chocolate Melting Wafers (vanilla flavored)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Cut the butter into one inch squares and place in the bowl of an electric mixer.
- Mix on high for 1 minute with both sugars. There should be no visible chunks of butter.
- Add in the vanilla and eggs. Mix briefly until everything has just come together.
- Add in the salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Mix until combined.
- Finally, add in both flours and sprinkles. Mix until a dough is formed, about 1 minute.
- Add in the two cups of animal circus cookies. I don't crush or break them prior to that. I allow the mixer to break them apart. Mix for about 1 minute until the cookies are broken and evenly distributed throughout the dough.
- Scoop dough with a large cookie scoop, makes 8 large cookies.
- Bake 4 cookies on a cookie sheet at a time for 10 minutes.
- Let the cookies cool for 15-20 minutes so the inside of the cookie can set.
- When cookies are completely cooled, melt the white chocolate wafers. Add a small amount of pink food coloring if desired. Mix together until color is well incorporated.
- Use about 2 tbsp worth of chocolate on top of each cookie. Sprinkle with a small amount of sprinkles on top.