Easter is a week away and I wanted to bust out some holiday themed treats.  I love 3D cookies.  From the moment I saw the pinata cookie, I fell deeply in love with making objects out of cookies.

My first attempt at 3D cookie art was a drum set inspired by my fave band, The Airborne Toxic Event.  Since then I’ve looked for inspiration to make another cookie stand up.  Easter baskets were the perfect muse.  Once I had the idea down, design was the next thing.  What other color would I choose to make a 3D cookie basket?  I wish I could take the credit, but it was my visiting mother who responded quickly with “yellow” when I asked what color basket to make.

Start out by cutting out the circles sized to how big you want your basket.  Then use a smaller cutter to cut out the inside.

If you’re like me, you’ll bend the fragile circle and have an egg-shaped ring.  (See that one in the bottom, left corner?)   This may look fine now, but when you try to assemble your basket it will be mis-shaped.  A simple fix is reshape it on your baking sheet with the original cookie cutter.  Wiggle it around and work it back to the right shape.

When the cookie are baked and cooled, use royal icing to stick the layers together.  (Don’t worry about those littler circles.  I have an easy fix to make them something special in a future blog.  Or you could eat them.)

Once the icing is dry, use your imagination to decorate the outside as simple or complex as you want.  I pulled out some miscellaneous royal icing flowers and dots I had from leftover icing.  I put handles on the baskets, but you don’t have to.  In fact, one broke in construction and I kinda like that one better.

I filled them with green shredded coconut grass.  I made some small egg cookies to go inside, but they weren’t cute.  Since the kids like to find chocolate in their baskets, I went the easy route and bought chocolate hard-shelled eggs.  And it’s not like I minded sampling the hard-shelled chocolate eggs as I created the final product.  In the end, the cookie basket and the candy were a big hit with everyone.