My 5yo and I made some Farm Animal Buns recently as part of our school holiday Farm Week. It was great fun and really simple to do.

These are the plans I sketched up (please excuse the drawing!)

The plan!

You will need

Round cookie cutter

Icing cutters (we use this set)

Ready-made white fondant icing (supermarket own-brand is fine)

Food colouring (we use this set)

Palette knife (not essential)

Rolling pin

Icing Sugar

Butter

Milk

Plain Buns

Preparation

Bake buns beforehand

I definitely recommend baking and decorating them on 2 separate days. The decorating alone took about 1 ½ hours (it would be much quicker without a 5 year old involved but hey ho!). We used a simple vanilla cupcake recipe. Once the buns are made, you can freeze them until you’re ready (they should be OK for a good 4 weeks in the freezer).

Vanilla buns defrosted and ready to go

Colour fondant icing

Again, I’d do this the night before. Mixing food colouring and children is just asking for trouble!

Just pull off as much fondant as you need and squash it around for a bit. Then dip a cocktail stick into the colour you want and wipe it into the fondant. Keep folding and squashing the fondant until it is coloured through.

Wrap the coloured balls in cling film and leave in the fridge.

Make your colours up the night before (we had to mix red and yellow to make the orange)

Make butter icing

Butter icing is simple; weigh the butter and then add twice as much icing sugar. Beat it together (preferably with an electric whisk unless you’ve got the muscles of a body builder!). Add milk to soften if necessary.

Make the Farm Animal Buns

I’m going to talk you through making the pig as an example.

Make the butter icing foundation

Put a dollop of butter icing onto each bun and smooth it off until it’s flat (ish). I use a small palette knife but the back of a table knife should be fine too.

Smooth the butter icing onto the bun

Make the fondant icing disc

Sprinkle some icing sugar onto your bench to stop the icing sticking to it. Roll out the pink fondant until it is about 3mm thick and use a round cookie cutter to cut out a disc. Use one that is slightly bigger than your bun.

Roll out the fondant onto icing sugar

Use a spatula to pick up the disc and place it on your bun. Gently press the edges into the bun.

Place the disc on the bun and tuck the edges in

Make the fondant features

Eyes: Pinch a tiny blob of black fondant for each eye and roll them into balls

Nose: Cut out a small circle for the snout and put 2 small dint in it for the nostrils

Pig nose

Ears: Use a flower icing cutter and then chop it up to make ear shapes

Pig ears

Attach the features

Butter Icing is the glue in this activity. Smear a tiny bit on the back of each piece, place on the disc, and then pat it gently so it sticks.

You’re done!

Finished pigs

Additional Extras

The cow disc

You might have noticed the cow disc is a mix of 2 colours. Don’t panic! All you need to do is roll a few pieces of each colour and arrange them closely together on your bench. Then roll them out with your rolling pin and they should merge together. Then cut out your disc as normal.

Arrange the coloured balls closely together

Use the rolling pin to merge them together

Cows

The sheep

No set of farm animal buns would be complete without a woolly sheep! The sheep is made by using more butter icing at the beginning and heaping it up into a little dome shape. Stick the black face on and then push mini marshmallows into the butter icing. Simple!

Heap the butter icing into a mound

Sheep

That’s it! Easy Peasy!

Farm Animal Buns: Step-By-Step

Now you know what to do, here’s a snappier version of the steps for you to follow:

1. Bake buns beforehand
2. Colour fondant icing the night before, wrap in clingfilm, leave in fridge
3. Make butter icing
4. Put a teaspoon of butter icing onto the bun
5. Use a spatula (or knife) to make the top flat and smooth
6. Roll out the pink fondant icing and use a round cookie cutter to make a pink disc and place onto a bun
7. Cut a smaller circle for the snout and put 2 small dints in for the nostrils
8. Dob a tiny amount of butter icing onto the back and stick into onto the bun
9. Roll 2 small black balls for eyes and mount on the bun with butter icing
10. Use a flower icing cutter to make the ear shapes and such to the bun with more butter icing

Ducklings

Chickens

Got an In The Night Garden fan? Why not have a look at my tutorial to make these fab cupcakes:

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