Sport Shirt Cookies - from Kiwicakes Test Kitchen

Our eldest just turned 6 and he is excited about his ripper rugby starting up again for the winter. We let the kids choose a theme for their birthdays and his was obvious (though at one stage there was discussion around a nuddy cake, go figure 6 year olds humour!)

Knowing it was going to be a busy time leading up to his little party, I chose to make the party favours 3 days in advance. I always try to give something homemade as a leaving gift and history has proven they are continually well-received!

I remembered Sandra making sleepover pyjama cookies (visit that blog post here) in the past and that inspired these rugby shirts.

To make these cookies you will need to mix up a batch of regular chocolate cookie dough, some homemade royal icing and have a sports jersey cookie cutter, sugar glue, black fondant, a piping bag and cellophane bags on hand.

I rolled out my cookie dough, cut rugby jersey shapes and baked them as normal. When cooled I brushed on some sugar glue to make the top surface tacky. I left a 2-3mm border around the sides un-glued as the fondant doesn't quite reach the cookie edge.

For my fondant I actually used a 50:50 mix of black fondant and chocolate brown fondant. I love the chocolate taste and the brown is deep enough to carry the colour from the black fondant and still create an overall jet black appearance. Just knead them together til combined. I rolled the fondant 3mm thick on a cornflour sprinkled board and used the same cutter to cut another 10 jersey shapes, which are simply placed on top of the tacky biscuits.

Then I made a quick royal icing by whisking together 1 egg white with 200g icing sugar and 1/2t lemon juice. I transferred the mix to a piping bag with a coupler inserted in it. ALBIE was using a tip#3 and the numeral 6 was using a tip #10. Alternatively you could snip 1mm off the end of the piping bag to write the name then snip the end off another 2mm higher up to pipe a fatter numeral.

The royal icing will need time to set and harden at room temperature before the bikkies can be packaged up and sealed for freshness. 

Then enjoy the looks of pure delight when these macho chocolatey delights are distributed!