Easy Easter Cookie Chicks for Kids to Make
We go to our fail safe cookie recipe to make our Easter Cookie Chicks. It is based on a shortbread recipe and contains no eggs! So it is great taste safe dough to make with kids! Learn how to make our Easter Chick Cookies today and try out this fun Easter Activity for Kids.
As you know Red Ted Art isn’t really a baking blog.. so I can assure, you when we DO bake, it is very amateur ish… i.e. I hope that encourages you to have a go, rather than put you off! If I (!) can do it, so can you!
We hade GREAT fun at Halloween making a Halloween Afternoon Tea, as well as Halloween Treat Gift Parcels for local friends. I thought, this would be nice to repeat for Easter. Those this time, we made up gift parcels for relatives we usually see at Easter and popped them in the post. We also made up a set of smaller gifts for the teachers at school. And of course, we wanted to save some for our own Easter school packed lunches and a little Easter Afternoon Tea at home.
Apologies to local friends who missed out this time! Ha. there were so many people to gift to!
What to put in an Easter Treat Box:
- Easter Chick Cookies (recipe and method below!!!)
- Easter Bunny Cookies (there are LOTS of these on the internet, I give a brief “how to” of how we made ours below)
- Easter Fudge from Eats Amazing (we used 500g of milk chocolate and a bain-marie)
- Classic Chocolate Nests
- We also had a chocolate Bunny From Lidl for my niece
- Made some crochet chicken ornaments for Granny from
- Crochet Chicken Ornaments for Granny from Dragon Bird Creations
- Foil wrapped mini eggs
- Cadbury’s Creme Eggs (because why not!)
- I also used the easy Easter Baskets from my book to add to the package and make it look pretty
Shortbread Chick Cookie Recipe:
This is a tried and tested recipe that we have made many times before! It is egg free, so taste safe for small children. We love this recipe so much, that our Traffic Light Cookies made from these feature in my first craft book “Red Ted Art, Cute & Easy Crafts for Kids“!
Makes approx 20-22 cookies (including bunny feet… so could make 25+ chicks).
- 300g flour (2 cups)
- 200g butter (a bit less than 1 cup) – unsalted and at room temperature best!
- 100g sugar (1/2 cup)
- vanilla essence (optional),
- a splash or two of milk if the dough is too crumbly
- good quality food colouring in orange (for the beak)
For the decoration:
- icing sugar
- a little water or lemon juice
- yellow food colouring
- mini marshmallows (cut the ends to make the cheeks)
- a small square of chocolate for the eyes
Other utensils:
- a glass to use as a cookie cutter
- a butter knife to cut triangles for the beaks
Preheat the oven to 180C
How to make Chick Cookies
Make sure the butter is at room tempature before you start, as it will make the dough less crumbly. Preheat the oven to 180C
- Place the flour, sugar and butter in a bowl and crumble together.
- Add a little vanilla essence.
- If the dough is very crumbly and not “combining”, add a splash of milk and mix again. Another nother splash if necessary (don’t add too much, else the cookies will “spread” too much in the oven). Less is more.
- Roll out your dough and cut out circles with your glass.
- Save a little dough for the end – mix in some orange food colouring. Roll out again and cut small triangles with your knife. They don’t have to be super accurate or amazing!
- Place all on the cookie tray – the triangles in the middle, as it usually takes a little longer to cook there.. and bake in the oven for 10-15min – until they start turning golden at the edges. If you wish you can take the triangle beaks out a little earlier!
- Put on a cooling rank and let cool fully before decorating.
*** for the bunny, we rolled two little balls per bunny and flattened it to make the smaller circles!
We had a little orange dough left over, so used our carrot cookie cutter to make some carrots, we added chocolate to the “green bit” of the carrot later.
Decorating your Easter Cookies:
For the chick:
- Mix the icing sugar, a little water or lemon together to make a smooth paste – not too thick, but definitely not too runny!
- Add yellow food colouring for the chicks (leave white for the bunny).
- Cover the cookie in yellow and add a beak.
- Cut slices off both ends of your mini marshmallow and place for chick’s cheeks (eat the middle bit, it will be too stick to use again).
- Let dry fully!
- Once dry, melt a little chocolate in the microwave and with a toothpick add dots for eyes.
For the bunny:
- Cover the cookie in white icing
- Cover the smaller cookies in icing and stick on the cookie – they have to go “quite far in”, else they will start sliding off!
- Once the feet a positioned, add a marshmallow tail
- Let dry fully!
- As with the chicks, add the feed paw print pattern with a little melted chocolate and a tooth pick.
As mentioned we also made some Easter Fudge – this is from the recipe linked above from Eats Amazing!
We also made some classic Easter Nests, that we have been making for years. Love that you can use whatever cereal you want, from Rice Crispies, to Cornflakes or even a healthy All Bran!
Enjoy!!
If you are looking for Easter Crafting Inspiration, take a look at these: