Mo Willems Sugar Cookies for Zachary’s 2nd Birthday

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Zachary turned two earlier this month (I know, it’s insane). We had a small birthday party for him last weekend and I went with a Mo Willems theme. If you don’t know Mo Willems, he’s the author of a lot of kids’ books, including Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and a host of “Elephant and Piggie” books. Zachary just adores his books, so I thought this would  be a fun theme. (The invite image is not showing up the best here, but you get the idea. It’s modeled after the book I am Invited to a Party! and the bottom says “P.S. Don’t let the pigeon come.”)

The Pigeon’s favorite food is hot dogs, so we decided to have a hot dog party! We had:

  • fruit salsa with cinnamon chips
  • guacamole with tortilla chips
  • barbecue chicken and caramelized onion quesadillas since my kid’s obsessed with quesadillas
  • a few different kinds of hot dogs/sausages with various toppings and condiments (relish, onions, cheese sauce, bbq sauce, etc. etc.)
  • burgers
  • Bacon/cheese potatoes in the crockpot
  • Mexican cherry tomato salad
  • cookies and cake

I didn’t want to spend much time in the kitchen, and with a little prep the day before, I really didn’t. I didn’t go terribly crazy with the theme or anything. This is pretty much the extent of my craftiness, which is a sign I made to go by the hot dogs from pages in the book.Yep, LOOK OUT Pinterest.

I decided to leave the cake-making to the pros this time because I really wanted some of the Mo Willems characters on the cake, and as we already know, I am one of the world’s worst cupcake and cake decorators. Gerald the elephant and Piggie went on the top of the cake.

Now, the cookies were a bit of a challenge, mostly because I am really, truly, terribly inartistic. A couple months ago, I tried making Mad Men sugar cookies and they were a failure on the most epic of levels. My falling men looked like ninjas, my Lucky Strike logo looked like Zachary made it, and my lettering looked that of a 4 year old learning to write his name for the first time.

Needless to say, I was a bit worried about making anything that wasn’t, like, a filled star. Let alone characters – that I wanted people to actually be able to recognize. I drew inspiration from this pic.

This time I decided to print a few characters out and then outline them, rather than free-handing. I actually went way overboard doing this because there was really no reason to draw any detailing, since they would get covered by flooding, anyway. I guess I just got overzealous.

Anyway, this definitely helped my artistic plight and though these cookies most certainly would not perfect, I would consider them a success especially after the Mad Men fiasco. I have a really, very unsteady hand and also cannot draw a straight line even while using a ruler, so I’m never going to be a perfect sugar cookie decorator. I still had did all the detailing freehand (trunks and mouths and whatnot, so I left myself plenty of room for error. 😉 Thankfully, a lot of Mo Willems characters are crudely drawn, so it works out a little better for me.

I did a couple Gerald designs (these were probably my favorite and turned out the best), a couple Piggie, the Pigeon, the bus, and Cat the Cat.

Originally I had planned on flooding the entire cookie white, and then essentially doing a double-flood where the character would be. But, I didn’t get a chance to start these as early as I wanted and only had a day to do them, so there was no chance both floods would dry before I could detail. Although some of the piping did get covered with the floods, it wasn’t too bad, so I’d probably do this again next time since I’m pretty lazy. 🙂 Plus, I’m not the world’s biggest royal icing fan, so doing it this way makes the icing layer thinner.

My timeline was making the dough Thursday night and refrigerating it, then rolling/cutting/baking it Friday morning. As soon as they cooled, I started doing the outlining, then when that dried, the flooding. I let them sit out until Zachary went to bed, and then did the detailing around 8:30 or 9:00. Not the most ideal, but it worked.

I mentioned in a previous post that I liked both Ashlee’s and Annie’s sugar cookie recipes, so I decided to combine them. I used Ashlee’s basic recipe, but increased the almond extract dramatically (one of my favorite things about Annie’s cookies) and eliminated the leavening altogether (also like Annie’s) so that they’d hold their shape a bit better and didn’t have as-raised tops. I think this is the recipe I will use going forward, because it was my favorite combination of flavor/texture/shape. I also added a little almond extract to the royal icing (what can I say? I can’t get enough.) Besides the fact that I could probably drink almond extract, the other nice thing about using it in the icing is that it’s clear so there is no chance of discoloring the icing, like vanilla extract would (though honestly, I’ve never had a huge issue with that).

Note Tom’s t-shirt, which is quite appropriate for our theme. Note also the fact that I did not have time to do my hair before the party (my inlaws are always early, and I am used to Greek people being at least an hour late, I guess) and probably should not have allowed myself to be photographed. Finally (and most importantly) note how freaking adorable our kid is.

He really, really hates candles, so we had to do the heavy lifting there. 😉

Mo Willems Sugar Cookies for Zachary’s 2nd Birthday

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28 thoughts on “Mo Willems Sugar Cookies for Zachary’s 2nd Birthday

  1. So cute! I really may have to steal this idea, as my daughter’s nickname is Pigeon and we love these books.

  2. First of all, you guys are the most adorable family ever. Seriously. Too cute.

    Second of all, the cookies are AMAZING! Way better than I can ever do. I am not adept at royal icing in any way shape or form. I attempted it once. And possibly never again.

  3. Elly, I love it! The cookies look so good, and those designs do not seem like they’d be easy to replicate at all. It’s also fun to see a “normal” theme kids party – I love seeing what people like Annie can do, but I also appreciate the more restrained approach (because I know that’s all I’d be able to pull off!).

  4. Time flies, right? I remember when he was born, how long have I been following your blog? I’m feeling a little old now, hehe. Beautiful cookies!

  5. These cookies are so cute! I’m horrible at royal icing…it kind of stresses me out. I love those books and can’t wait until Ellie is into them, too!
    Happy Birthday, Zachary!

  6. Elly! These turned out beautifully! Seriously, great job! I’m totally impressed.

    The entire party seemed like the perfect, simple, yet super cute and fun day. And, you’re right, Zachary IS insanely cute! Happy birthday, big boy!

  7. Zachary looks so much like you! 😀 These cookies look so good–I think you did a wonderful job! And they were a labor of love for your little one, which makes them even more special. 🙂

  8. I’m totally late commenting on this post, but I love what you did with this theme (we were recently introduced to those books – Levi got The Duckling Gets a Cookie and We Are In a Book as birthday gifts.) and your menu sounds delicious and stress-free. Bravo, mom!

  9. your cookies came out so great!!! i love how the whole party turned out too! isnt a mo willems theme so much fun! thank you so much for the link to my cookies…that is so sweet of you and im so happy that they were inspiring for your designs:) great, great job!!! happy baking!!
    ~sarah

  10. i am having an elephant and piggie party for my daughter’s birthday and i’m so jealous i can not make those cookies you did! they look amazing! i never get the timing right with frosting, etc. but maybe i’ll try!

    1. Jessie, those were only my second or third attempt at decorated cookies ever, so it can be done. The pen really, really helped. Good luck if you try them!

  11. Hi! Where did you get your invites?! They are perfect! I’m planning a Mo Willems party for my little guy’s 3rd birthday in May, and that is exactly what I’m looking for! Thanks for the inspirations!
    Jennifer

    1. Hi Jennifer, I actually just made them. I found some images online and then I just placed them/added text. I’m not really savvy with that kind of stuff, so I think you should be able to do it. 🙂 That said, I do remember seeing some on Etsy at the time, too!

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