Easter bunny cookie pops

I often say any food is more fun when eaten on a stick. Themed iced biscuits on sticks can make an Easter display or a great gift. Assuming Easter will be wet and cold this year, these Easter bunny cookie pops are also a good indoor activity to keep little people busy during the holidays.

Kids love cutting shapes out of sugarpaste, to them it’s just like playing with Play Doh. The decoration here is simple enough for them to help; cutting out sugarpaste shapes, drizzling molten chocolate and sticking down that fluffy bunny marshmallow tail.

The jumping bunny cookie cutter came from Hobbycraft but plenty of supermarkets stock seasonal Easter cutters too. If you don’t have any lolly sticks then some of those long wooden stirrers from coffee chains do the job just as well. The bunny’s eyes were large blue sprinkles picked from a selection of mixed colours but you could use sweets or balls of darker sugarpaste.

This recipe yields a generous ball of dough – I did consider halving it but cookie dough freezes so beautifully it makes perfect sense to make this big batch and keep the rest for another occasion. Cookie dough can be kept wrapped in the fridge for 7 days or frozen for 2–3 months. If you have any scraps left over, why not chop them up and pop into your own cookie dough ice cream?

A last note on food colour – gel or paste food colourings are much easier to use than liquids. Alternatively you can buy pre-coloured sets of primary shades of sugarpastes (stocked widely) and mix a little of each with larger blocks of white sugarpaste – I told you it was just like Play Doh! Leftover sugarpaste needs to be double wrapped and used within a few weeks before it goes too hard. You can also use diluted food colouring to paint the lolly sticks.

For fixing the cookies to the sticks I have suggested instant royal icing to avoid faffing with egg whites – but you can make traditional royal icing with standard icing sugar if you don’t want to buy an extra kind for one recipe.

You will also need:

- Baking sheets lined with parchment paper

- Bunny cookie cutter

- Lolly sticks

- Vinyl or latex gloves (to avoid staining from food colouring)