Cookies and Candles

Just before our son, Adam, turned 7, he announced that he didn’t really like cake and asked could he have dinosaur cookies instead. After the 33 birthday parties my husband, Ralph, and I had thrown for our kids, this was a new one. Not an earthshaking dilemma, but where would we put the candles? A plate of cookies was, well, just a plate of cookies.

More practical parents might have left it at that or resorted to ice cream, but I considered it a matter of pride to come up with a clever response to Adam’s request. Challenge being the mother of invention at my house, I scrounged for inspiration and found it in a can of frosting and a 2-foot cardboard square. My brilliant idea? I would bake and decorate cookies to resemble dinosaurs, palm trees and boulders and place them on the cardboard, frosted to look like a primordial landscape. With a volcano fashioned from found objects on which to plant the homeless candles, it would be an edible 3-D tableau.

The night before the party, I slathered a corner of cardboard with chocolate frosting in a freewheeling, Van Gogh sort of way. Then I frosted and “glued” on a paper cup and ice cream cone to create the volcano, squeezing on a tube of red icing for oozing lava. (Later I would learn that a stale loaf of bread is easier to carve and frost.) Then I quickly swirled green frosting into grasslands and blue frosting into a serpentine river.

Positioning my homemade cookies, which were “painted” with vibrantly tinted egg wash, proved trickier. Where necessary, I balanced them against one another or used a discreetly placed marshmallow for support.

Ralph happened by as I was arranging battles among ferocious tyrannosaurs: “If you cut the legs off a couple of brontosaurs, they’ll look like they’re wading in the river.” I handed him a knife, and he took the project to a new level of trompe l’oeil.

The cookie tableau turned out even better than a cake. It was a colorful storytelling centerpiece that enthralled Adam and his friends. And its sugar rush was mostly visual. After Adam blew out the candles, the children were happy to pluck the cookies out of the frosting and eat them plain. A birthday tradition we dubbed “Cookieland” was born.

Every year, we all baked and painted, often cutting cookies freehand or using cardboard templates. Our favorite tableaux included a pirate scene complete with sea serpent, toy pirates and a ship with bamboo skewer masts and paper sails drawn by Adam. Then there was the buffalo hunt inspired by “Dances With Wolves,” followed by the Civil War with cookie fires and a Tara-like plantation.

Our cookie oeuvre culminated with a giant Cookieland for Adam’s bar mitzvah. Almost 3 feet by 4 feet, it reprised all of the previous birthday themes and incorporated new ones, including skiers racing down a creamy Alps, Little League players rounding the bases and sentries guarding Buckingham Palace. As eager as they were when they were 7, those oh-so-cool 13-year-olds couldn’t wait to get their hands on this tasty world.*

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ANIMAL CRACKERS

Adapted from “Desserts” by Nancy Silverton (Harper & Row, 1986)

Makes 5 dozen (3-inch) cookies

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1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 1/2cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tablespoons heavy cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

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Beat butter in electric mixer until creamy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add sugar and beat until well blended. Whisk eggs, cream and vanilla in small bowl, then beat into butter mixture, scraping sides of mixer as needed.

Sift flour and baking powder. Beat into butter-egg mixture until just blended. Divide dough into thirds, flatten into disks and wrap separately in plastic. Chill 2 hours or overnight.

On lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters or use knife to trace cardboard templates. Place cookies on paper-lined or nonstick baking sheets. Chill cookies briefly if dough seems soft.

Bake cookies at 325 degrees until lightly browned, about 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

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Food stylist: Christine Anthony-Masterson