Ladies' Hat Piñata Cookies

Wearing ladies' hats may have gone out of fashion, but these festively decorated Ladies' Hat Piñata Cookies will still be fun treats to serve on Mother's Day, Easter, or for a Kentucky Derby Party.

The recipe was originally published on May 6, 2015.

Ladies' hats used to be all the rage and even though they no longer make a big fashion statement they are still an iconic symbol of days gone by. I remember as a child wearing my mom's hats when we played dress up.

Girls and women still wore hats on Easter Sunday and to this day many still wear hats to the Kentucky Derby. So I wanted to create some cute hat-shaped treats and am excited to share how to make these Ladies' Hat Cookies.

I love making candy-filled pinata cookies. My Snowflake-Filled Snowman Cookies and Sombrero Pinata Cookies are both very popular.

It's fun to see the reaction of friends and family when they break them open to find candy hiding inside.

These candy-filled hat cookies are very much like the Baseball Hat Piñata Cookies I shared with you a few weeks ago. Like those cookies, I once again used a cake ball pan to shape the rounded top of the hats.

These hat cookies can be colored any way you'd like and decorated using fondant, modeling chocolate, candies, or sprinkles.

I decorated these lady hat cookies with modeling chocolate daisies. They were easy to make and added just enough flair to the hats to dress them up.

Ingredients

Cookie Dough- (makes 12-15 cookies)

all-purpose flour
salt
baking powder
butter (If you use salted butter, cut the salt in the recipe in half.)
sugar
eggs
vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract
almond extract
gel food coloring

See the recipe card for quantities.

Decorations:
4-6 ounces modeling chocolate* or fondant
corn syrup
2-4 tablespoons royal icing (or store-bought cookie icing to match cookie color)
candy (about a tablespoonful per cookie)

*You can find the recipe and tutorial for making homemade white modeling chocolate on my Chocolate Making Tips page.

Supplies

Bake Pop Pan or other cake ball pan
3 - 4 inch scalloped round cookie cutter (based on the size of your cake ball pan)
2 ½ inch round cookie cutter
optional, JEM 5mm strip cutter #2 (or use a pizza cutter)
small daisy plunger cutter
small round plunger cutter

Instructions

Make the cookie dough.

• Mix 4 cups all-purpose flour, ¾ teaspoon salt, and ¾ teaspoon baking powder together in a bowl.
• Set aside.
• Cream 1 cup softened butter and 1 ½ cups sugar until light and fluffy.
• Stir in 2 large eggs, 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla bean paste (or pure vanilla extract), and ¾ teaspoon almond extract.
• Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.

Note: I love using Rodelle's Vanilla Bean Paste in my cookies. The flavor is so intense and it doesn't bake out as it does when using liquid extracts, so the cookies have an amazing vanilla flavor.

Color the cookie dough.

• Divide your dough into 4 equal parts.
• Add a few drops of food coloring to each dough ball and knead the coloring in to the dough.
• For the hats you can use any colors you like. I used pink, violet, blue, and yellow.
• Just note that being the dough is a light tan color, you won't get true colors. My blue was really more teal, which I thought was quite pretty.
• If you want truer colors you can add some white food coloring.

NOTE: Wear food handling gloves or you will color your hands!

Roll and cut-out dough.

• Lightly dust your work surface with flour.
• Roll out the dough to between ⅛th of an inch and 1/16th of an inch thickness.
• Cut out 4 hat brims using a 3-4 inch round scalloped cutter.
• Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
• Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Bake these cookies for 12-14 minutes.

Why refrigerate the cut shapes?

• Chilling the dough will help to keep the dough from spreading while it's baking.

Cut and form dough circles into domes.

• Re-roll each colored cookie dough out to a 1/16-inch thickness.
• Cut 4 circles of each color using round cutters, so that when you drape the dough over your cake ball pan, the dough drapes over but doesn't touch the base of the pan.
• The cookies will spread slightly while baking so you want to give them a bit of room to spread.
• You don't want the dough forming a lip at the base of the cookie.
• I used a 2 ½-inch cutter, but your pan may be smaller and require a smaller cutter, so adjust the size as needed.
• Drape circles of dough over each mound on your pan and smooth with your fingers.
• Place the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes. You want this dough really cold before baking.

Note:

• You will have some excess dough and can make a few more hat cookies.
• Being my cake ball pan only allowed me to make 13 cookies at a time, I made 4 of each then just rolled out the excess dough and baked up a few cookies to snack on.

Bake the cookies.

• Bake the cookies on the bottom rack of your oven for 8-11 minutes.
• Allow the cookies to cool completely.

You will notice a few of my cookies browned quite a bit on top which was caused by a few hot spots in my oven. If you have those too, it's best to rotate the cookies halfway through baking. I got distracted and forgot to do that.

Fill and assemble the cookies.

• To assemble your hat cookies, fill the rounded cookies with candies, then pipe a thin line of royal icing around the top edge of the cookie.
  • I used store-bought cookie icing, but you can use homemade royal icing if you prefer.
  • You can find my royal icing recipe on my Sugar Skull tutorial.
• Turn one of the scalloped cookies upside down, set it on top of the iced cookie, and press them together to seal.
• Turn the cookie right side up and allow them to dry for at least 30 minutes.
  

Make modeling chocolate decorations.

• To decorate your hat cookies, roll out some modeling chocolate or fondant and cut into ⅛th inch wide by 8-inch long strips and attach to the hats using royal icing, cutting off any excess.

Find the simple 2-ingredient modeling chocolate recipe and tips for coloring white modeling chocolate on my How to Make Modeling Chocolate page.

Add flowers to the hats.

• Color small pieces of white modeling chocolate or fondant to match your hats.
• Color some green as well.
• Roll out the modeling chocolate and cut out flowers using a small daisy plunger cutter. Cut the center of the flowers out using a small round plunger cutter.
• Attach the centers to the daisies using a small dab of water.

Note:

• I used Wilton's new Water Brush, which I love.
• I don't have to mess around with bowls of water, which I've been known to spill all over my modeling chocolate. The water is contained in the brush. It was perfect for attaching these tiny pieces together.

Once all of your cookies are assembled and decorated they are ready to dress up your dessert table.

You might also like these other candy-filled pinata-style cookies.

Baseball Piñata Cookies
Basketball Piñata Cookies
Sunshine Piñata Cookies
Batman Piñata Cookies
Sombrero Piñata Cookies

Recipe

5 from 2 votes

Print

Ladies Hat Pinata Cookies

Prep Time

1 hr

Cook Time

12 mins

Total Time

1 hr 12 mins

 

Brightly colored cookies shaped like ladies hats are decorated with modeling chocolate flowers and are filled with candy so when you crack them open you find candy hiding inside. 

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: ladies hat cookies, ladies hat pinata cookies

Servings: 12

Author: Beth Klosterboer

Ingredients

Cookie Dough

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup butter, softened slightly
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract
• ¾ teaspoon almond extract
• gel food coloring (pink, blue, yellow, violet)

Decorations:

• ¾ cup small candies like M&M's
• 2-4 tablespoons royal icing or store bought cookie icing to match cookie color
• 4-6 ounces modeling chocolate or fondant
• corn syrup

Instructions

Cookie Dough

1. Mix the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a bowl. Set aside. 

2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in eggs, vanilla bean paste, and almond extract.

3. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended.
4. Divide the dough into 4 equal parts and color pink, violet, blue, and yellow.
5. Lightly dust your work surface, roll out the dough to between ⅛th of an inch and 1/16th of an inch thickness. Cut out 4 hat brims using a round scalloped cutter.
6. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
7. Meanwhile preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
8. Bake these cookies for 12-14 minutes.
9. Re-roll each colored cookie dough out to a 1/16 inch thickness.
10. Cut four circles of each color using 2 ½ inch (or smaller) round cutters, so that when you drape the dough over your cake ball pan, the dough drapes over but doesn’t touch the base of the pan.
11. Drape circles of dough over each mound on your pan and smooth with your fingers.
12. Place the pan in the freezer for 15 minutes.
13. Bake the cookies on the bottom rack of your oven for 8-11 minutes.
14. Allow the cookies to cool completely.

Decorations & Candy

1. To assemble your hat cookies, fill the rounded cookies with candies, then pipe a thin line of royal icing around the top edge of the cookie.
2. Turn one of the scalloped cookies upside down, set it on top of the iced cookie, and press them together to seal. Turn the cookie right side up and allow to dry for at least 30 minutes.
3. To decorate your hat cookies, roll out some modeling chocolate or fondant and cut into ⅛th inch wide by 8 inch long strips and attach to the hats using royal icing, cutting off any excess.
4. Color small pieces of white modeling chocolate or fondant to match your hats. Color some green as well.
5. Roll out the modeling chocolate and cut out flowers using a small daisy plunger cutter. Cut the center of the flowers out using a small round plunger cutter.
6. Attach the centers to the daisies using a small dab of water.Note: I used Wilton’s new Water Brush, which I love. I don’t have to mess around with bowls of water, which I’ve been known to spill all over my modeling chocolate. The water is contained in the brush. It was perfect for attaching these tiny pieces together.
7. Once all of your cookies are assembled and decorated they are ready to dress up your dessert table.

• Author
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Beth Klosterboer

Hi, I'm Beth Klosterboer, a professional chocolatier & baker, cookbook author, and event planner. I love sharing recipes for happy occasions here on Hungry Happenings. I also create easy fudge recipes to share at HowToMakeEasyFudge.com, rice krispie treat recipes at HowToMakeCerealTreats.com, and easy cookie recipes at HowToMakeEasyCookies.com

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