Cinnamon Animal Crackers
Tired of the same old small bites? Twin Cities food blogger greens & chocolate dreamed up these lightly sweet and perfectly cinnamony animal crackers to help get your family out of a snack rut. They’re easy to make, and a fun project for the whole family!
At our house, we get stuck in a snack rut from time to time (usually granola bars and crackers), and when this happens I try to shake things up with some homemade treats, like mini muffins, granola, homemade graham crackers and now these Cinnamon Animal Crackers.
These crackers are mildly sweet with just a quarter cup of sugar and a couple tablespoons of honey, and I used a combination of white flour and whole wheat flour. To give the animal crackers a bit of flavor, I added a teaspoon of ground cinnamon.
Since I wanted these crackers to resemble animals, I found a cute set of mini cookie cutters online, and they were perfect. You could opt for differently shaped mini cookie cutters or regular-size cookie cutters, or you could use a pizza cutter to cut them into square-shaped crackers.
These Cinnamon Animal Crackers can be topped in a variety of ways: you can keep them plain, drizzle them with icing and top with sprinkles, or dust them with just sprinkles. Of course, my kids loved the ones with icing and sprinkles.
The icing for this recipe is a simple combination of powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract, and I used round, rainbow-colored sprinkles. If you are going to skip the icing and just use sprinkles, I would use sugar crystal sprinkles and put them on the cookies prior to baking.
I left some of the crackers plain, and I must say that the unfrosted ones are no less delicious than the frosted ones! Additionally, they are less messy than the ones with icing and sprinkles.
These were a really fun project to make with the kids, and they appreciated having a different option at snack time!
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Chill time: 30 minutes
Bake time: 8 to 10 minutes
Ingredients
¼ cup coconut oil, melted
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
For the icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 to 3 tablespoons milk
Sprinkles (optional)
Directions
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat together the coconut oil, butter, sugar and honey until well combined. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until combined. Add the baking powder, cinnamon and salt, and mix to combine. Add the flours, beating until combined and formed into a dough.
- Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes. If you refrigerate for longer than 30 minutes, you’ll want to set it out on the counter for about 10 minutes to warm, as the dough gets a little crumbly if it is too cold.
- Heat oven to 350 F.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll half of the dough out onto a floured surface, about ¼-inch thick. Using cookie cutters or a pizza cutter, cut the dough into shapes. Repeat with the remaining dough. Note: I used mini cookie cutters that resembled animals.
- Place the crackers on the prepared baking sheets. The dough will not spread, so you can place them quite close together, about ½” apart. At this point, you can put crystal sugar sprinkles on the cookies, if desired.
- Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. If your animal crackers are not mini, they will take closer to 10 to 12 minutes.
- Let cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer to a cooling rack.
- You can serve the animal crackers as is, or frost them using the following recipe once they have cooled completely.
To make the icing:
- Place the cookies on parchment or wax paper for easier clean up.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, vanilla and milk. Drizzle the icing over each cookie, then decorate with sprinkles. Let the icing set.
- Alternately, you can serve these animal crackers plain without sprinkles or icing.
- Store in an airtight container for up to a week.
Enjoy!
