Polar Bear Nutter Butter Cookies

I adore Polar Bears. When we lived in Maryland, we would often visit the Baltimore Zoo.

My oldest daughter would beg to go just to see Magnet, the zoo's resident Polar Bear.

One day Magnet decided to jump into his pool when it had been emptied for cleaning, and he broke his paw.

My daughter was about 4, and she made Magnet a get-well card. The Zoo actually replied to her, sending her a book of the animals of the Baltimore Zoo. How cool is that?

Though we heard Magnet passed away in April (he was 26) the Baltimore Zoo and Magnet still have a special place in our hearts.

I think everyone loves Polar Bears, so we thought it would be fun to create Polar Bear cookies! This would be a fun activity to do with the kids over Christmas break. Toss some learning in there by printing this Polar Bear Wordsearch or Science Activities!

Polar Bear Nutter Butter Cookies

Cookie Ingredients:

1 package  Nutter Butter Cookies
1 package of Ghirardelli White Chocolate Wafers
Miniature Marshmallows
Royal Icing

Royal Icing Ingredients: 

2 egg whites
1 C powder sugar
½ tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla
Black gel food coloring

Cookie Directions:

-Line a cookie sheet with wax paper.
-Using a double boiler melt the white chocolate wafers.
-Follow the example of the Santa cookies.
-Dip the bottom half of each Nutter Butter cookie into the melted white chocolate.
-Remove the cookie from the melted chocolate by using a fork.
- Lay the white chocolate-covered cookie on the wax paper to dry.
-Refer to the picture of the cookie for the next steps.
-Allow to dry completely.

Royal Icing Directions:

-Separate the egg yolk from the whites. putting only the egg whites into a mixing bowl.
-Stir in the sugar, cream of tarter and vanilla to the egg whites.
-Beating on medium for 6 minutes.
-If the icing has the appearance of  soup or is yellow in color add more powder sugar, 1 cup.
-Put the icing in a bowl.
-Take out 2 TBSP of icing, keeping it white.
-Begin to scoop all of the white icing and put it into a piping bag with #2 tip.
-The rest of the icing add black gel food coloring, stirring to mix in the color.
-Spoon the black icing into another piping bag with a #2 tip.
-With the white icing add two white drops for the whites of the eyes.  Also using the white icing as glue to add the mini marshmallows to the top side of the nutter butter.
-With the black royal icing add two smaller dots on top of the white icing dots.
-Using the black icing again draw two eye brows above the eyes, a half square in black for the mouth and for the nose, outline then fill in a black circle.
-Allow the chocolate and icing to completely dry.

Looking for more cookie ideas? Check out these White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal cookies or these Peppermint Mocha Cookies!