When I saw these mice cookies on Serious Eats, I knew I had to try making them. Cookies that look like cute little mice! How perfect is that?
The recipe comes from Martha Stewart. The cookies don’t spread much during baking, making them ideal to mold into shapes. I had some trouble shaping my mice and getting them to all look the same, but I was pretty happy with my first attempt.
The cookies are a cross between shortbread and sugar cookies and have almond extract flavoring. The little almond ears are very delicate and many of mine fell off. I skipped the licorice tails to make these cookies more adult orientated.
Next time I think I will experiment with creating something other than mice, but these mice are super cute and would be perfect to bring to a party.
Mice Cookies
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter softened
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup sliced natural almonds
Instructions
- Whisk to combine flour and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add sugar gradually, beating until mixture is pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in extract, then egg. Reduce speed to low, and add one-third flour mixture. Gradually add remaining flour mixture, beating just until blended. Halve dough and shape into disks; wrap each in plastic, and chill 2 hours or up to 1 day.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Roll about 1 tablespoon of chilled dough between your palms to form 1 1/4-inch- to 1 1/2-inch-long oval shapes. Slightly elongate one side to form face. Gently pinch bridge of nose to form eye sockets. With a paring knife, make 2 small slits at top of each shape, for placement of ears. (I didn't do this step. Instead, I just broke a sliced almond in half and stuck each half onto the dough.) Place 2 sliced almonds into slits. Place shapes on parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart.
- Bake, rotating sheets halfway through until cookies are light golden brown on bottom and around edges, and tips of ears are golden brown, about 20 minutes. (I did not rotate my sheets and the cookies came out fine.) Transfer sheets to wire racks. Let cookies cool completely on wire racks.
- To make the faces, I made some chocolate ganache and put it in a freezer Ziploc bag and cut a tiny hole at the bottom and then piped eyes and a nose for each mouse.
Notes
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
Adorable!
I love eating these cute things. The only downfall is that they don’t transport well. I kept losing ears when I boxed some up to give to people.
Those are super cute! At first glance I thought maybe they were a meringue type of cookie.
These taste a bit like a mix of butter/sugar/shortbread cookie. Probably easier to make than meringues!
Awww… these are adorable!
Thanks!
These mice cookies are adorable! They would be a great hit for school bake sale. Well done!