Cinco de Mayo piñata cookies

Apr 24, 2012 3:01 PM by Sandra Denneler

Posted in Food & Recipes / Dessert Recipes / Baking

Video how-to: Pinata Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 cups flour
1 tablespoon vanilla
Mini M&M candies
1/2 cup powdered sugar (frosting)
2 teaspoons milk (frosting)

Directions to make piñata sugar cookies:

Pinata cookies

Make the dough

Cream sugars with butter. Beat in eggs. Add oil. Combine dry ingredients together, and then gradually add them to the mixture. Mix in vanilla and almond extract.

Color the dough

Split dough into five, even-sized balls and one smaller ball (this will be the black one). Add food coloring to each of the dough balls until desired color is achieved. Gel food coloring gives you more intense colors than liquid.

Colored dough balls

Layer the dough

Use a container the same approximate width of your donkey/burro piñata cookie cutter, and line it with plastic food wrap. Split all of your colored dough balls in half (except the black) and begin layering the dough in the container, starting with the black dough on the bottom. Alternate the colors so that you end up with two layers of each color by the time you're done.

Layering the colored dough

Wait

Cover the layered dough and freeze for four hours or overnight. This is the perfect time to conserve your creative juices for what lies ahead.

Bake the cookies

Remove the dough from the container and unwrap from the plastic. Cut slices, approximately 1/4-inch wide. Place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake them at 350 degrees F for 12 minutes.

Slices of frozen dough

Cut the cookies

Immediately after you take them out of the oven, use your burro piñata cookie cutter to cut the cookie shapes. Working in sets of three, be sure to cut two burro piñata cookies in one direction and one burro piñata cookie in the opposite direction. (Just flip your cookie cutter over.) That way, when you go to assemble them, the finished cookie will look "pretty" on both sides -- because the baked, bottom sides will be hidden.

Cutting the pinata shape from baked cookies

Create the hidden pocket

For the middle cookies in each set, cut off the ears and legs, and cut out the center where the M&Ms will go. I used a small square cutter, and made three cuts to get a narrow rectangle. Try to work quickly, because as the cookies cool, they are more likely to crumble or break. Let them cool on the baking sheet before you move them and remove the excess, outer cookie.

Cutting inside out of the pinata cookie

Assembling the piñata cookies

To assemble, take the first piñata cookie and lay it upside down so that the baked bottom is facing up. Outline the center of the piñata body with a "frosting glue" mixture of milk and powdered sugar. (I used 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and two teaspoons of milk. If you put it inside a Ziploc bag and cut off a tiny tip of the bag's corner, you can pipe it onto the cookie easily.)

Put the middle cookie on top of the frosting glue and add the M&Ms to the open center. Put another outline of frosting glue on the middle cookie and place the opposite-cut piñata cookie on top (so that the pretty side is facing out). Let these sit and harden for at least 30 minutes before you stand them upright.

First cookie with frosting glue

Second cookie with middle cut out

Second cookie filled with frosting glue for top pinata cookie

Finished pinata cookie

Show off your finished piñata cookie

Final product: pinata sugar cookie!

This recipe will make six to eight piñata cookies.

More Cinco de Mayo recipes and party ideas

Cinco de Mayo recipes: Fiesta food and drink
Host a Cinco de Mayo fiesta
Skinny margarita recipes

More photos

Click here to see more step-by-step photos.

Tags: cinco de mayo cookie recipes

Comments

Comments on "Cinco de Mayo piñata cookies"

I just love these cookies. I plan to make a copy of your directions and place it in my April tickle folder. I plan to have my neices help me next year to make them for my students. They will love them. Thanks for the wonderful project.

Yes, I cut them straight from the freezer with a large, sharp, butcher-block knife. If the layers start to split, just press the dough back together with your fingers. The slices will also soften and bake together in the oven.

Hi Sandra - I made this recipe for Cinco de Mayo this year; they turned out great and I received many compliments! However, I was wondering if I could ask you a technical question - when you cut the dough, what type of knife did you use? Also, did you cut it right after taking the dough from the freezer? I found that it tended to "crack" along the colored layers which caused a few problems that I had to troubleshoot down the line ... Thanks!

They look awesome! Im trying them out for a charity fundraising week! I think we might run out very quickly!

I thought this was a wonderful idea. Making them as we speak for a birthday this evening. CLAIRE, maybe you did not read the directions right. I think they are wonderful!

I made these today for a birthday and they were a big hit! The cookies were a bit different than other sugar cookie recipes I've tried (maybe a bit less sweet and a bit 'moister'?) but everyone still liked them! Mixing the excess dough (some shapes that had less detail I cut before baking) into circles and flattening them also made really neat looking cookies. I didn't use gel food colouring so the colours were less intense, but the few bottles I had of 'neon' liquid food colouring were nearly as bright. Also used a loaf pan for layering. Thanks for the recipe!

The ingredients list says 5 cups of flour.

oh boy im trying to make these right now and the ingrediant list doesnt say how much flour could anyone plz ttell me how much flour

Claire, I'm sorry you did not like my cookies. It's a recipe that's been in my family for 50+ years and everyone I know loves them, requests them, and asks for the recipe. Perhaps the pinata cookie idea is not the best recipe to use for this, but I encourage you and others to find one that works for you. Shortbread? Rice Krispy Treats? Snickerdoodles? Any of the other 20,000 sugar cookie recipes that exist in the world? I've made these cookies many, many, many times and they always turn out for me. I'm happy to share my ideas and techniques, it's up to you to experiment and do what works and tastes best for you.

You can make these 2 or 3 days before your event. Although, 30 of them sounds REALLY ambitious, even for me. It takes me and entire day to make seven.

How far in advance can you make these cookies...I'm looking to make approx 30...are there any adjustments I should make or easy way to make 30?

This is the WORST sugar cookie recipe I have ever tried!!!!! Who uses equal amounts of sugar and fats in a sugar cookie? Then twice the amount of flour!!! They tasted like vegitable oil and nothing else!!!!!

omg this is the best thing ive ever seen i am so making these for my pool party in may its so cool

Thanks Marina. This idea came to me on a complete whim about three years ago. My co-workers and I were going to have a little Cinco de Mayo feast, and I told everyone I would bring dessert (But I didn't know what to make.) That night, I started out to bake some flat, striped, pinata cookies. And then my husband and I schemed a way to make them 3-dimensional. Needless to say, everyone at work was pretty excited when they discovered there was real candy in side.

My gosh you are talented.. where did this recipe originate from?

I used gel food coloring. You can find it at most baking and hobby/craft stores. There are tons of color options and they're much more intense then the liquid (red, yellow, blue green) you get at a grocery store.

This is such an awesome idea! My question is where did you get the food coloring a you used? They're so bright, I'm guessing you didn't mix the typical red/blue/green/yellow colors together?

This is the coolest idea ever!!!!!

My container was a 10-cup Rubbermaid storage container - approx 4"x6"x9". Ideally, you should use something exactly the same size as your cookie cutter.

What size container did you use to stack the dough? Was it one of the disposable glad containers I could buy at the grocery store?