Anyone for a chocolate squirrel?

I wasn't planning on writing a new post so soon after the last one, but I really must share my sister's latest baking extravaganza:

CHOCOLATE BISCUIT SQUIRRELS!

I think they might actually be the best bake the Johns household has ever seen. I was rather chuffed with myself for my ingredient substitutions with my Mini-egg muffins, but Mel took recipe adaptations to a new level. Because, in an ideal world, or at least one plentiful with heart-shaped cookie cutters, her biscuits were supposed to look like this...

But unfortunately, we don't have a heart-shaped cookie cutter. Circles were deemed too boring and the Christmas selection out of season. We do, though, have a squirrel.

 It came in the goody bag I received when I joined the Exeter University Baking Society - or BakeSoc - which I sadly couldn't attend very often (at least not with any of my own baked creations) because, once I'd paid my membership fee, I remembered that the kitchens in halls consisted solely of a microwave and a sandwich toaster. 

Anyway, Edward the Squirrel, as he was once known, has finally been put to good use as an emergency cookie cutter. I think he did a rather good job, although some of his offspring did come out of the oven looking a tad like Timmy Tiptoes (one for the Beatrix Potter fans among you). Mel and Dad affectionately dubbed the most wayward ones 'chocolate roadkill', which is perhaps not the most appetising moniker for a biscuit, but they tasted very nice all the same.

The squirrels were then spread with melted chocolate and then - drum roll, please - our very special finishing touch, coloured sugar!

I've wanted to try and make this for ages and the recipe for Mel's sugared hearts, sorry, rodents required some, so we set to work. It's actually much simpler than you'd think, because it looks really pretty and effective on top of the dark chocolate. All you need to do is pop a few drops of food colouring into a plastic bag of sugar and then roll it around until the colour has spread thoroughly through. I'm definitely going to try it on some buns when I've recovered from the buttercream debacle.

And here are the finished articles; there were, I think, 29 of them in total, but there could have been a lot more Edwards had the cookie dough not tasted exactly like the sort in Ben and Jerry's ice cream...!

I hope that Mel's squirrels have inspired you to bake some mammals of your own - we did discuss an 'English Garden' collection, with accompanying frogs and badgers, but whether or not that vision will be realised, only time will tell.

(: xx