Dinosaur cookies may be the most yummy and fun way to enjoy dinosaurs! Dinosaur cookies are a great way to bring young palaeontologists into the kitchen with you. Kids love to bake along, and it’s a sneaky way to teach them math. Having them help weigh out ingredients like sugar in ounces and then having to add it to the bowl can stimulate those math skills! You can add food colour to the cookie dough to make them extra special, or add cute little sugar eyes. Sprinkles or other fun cookie decorations can be added to those dino cookies. If you are a really skilled cookie baker, you can even decorate your dinosaurs with some royal icing! I’m not the fanciest cook, so I just went with some food colour and these fun little eyes for my dinosaur cookies I found at my local Bulk Barn at Halloween. Here is Vester’s favourite recipe for dinosaur cookies; I hope you enjoy it as much as my family does!
Vester the Velociraptor; Event Coordinator at The Dinoverse
Recipe:
Ingredients:
2¼ (281g) All-Purpose Flour
½ tsp Baking Powder
¼ tsp Salt
¾ cup (170g) Unsalted Butter, softened to room temperature
¾ cup (150g) Sugar
1 Egg, at room temperature (see my tip below on how to do this!)
2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
¼ – ½ tsp Almond Extract (optional, but it makes your cookies so good!)
Food colour, sprinkles, royal icing, sugar eyes – Whatever you want to make your dinosaur cookie dreams come true!
Instructions:
Combine your Flour, Baking Powder, and Salt in a bowl. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, cream your butter and sugar together until it is light, smooth and creamy. Make sure you scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure that any extra bits don’t get missed!
Add in the egg, and Vanilla Extract (and Almond, if you’re using it), and beat until it’s well combined. This is a good time to add colour, if you are colouring the full batch. If you only want to add colour to parts of it, wait until after the flour mixture is added.
Don’t forget to scrape!
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing on low only until everything is mixed together. Your cookie dough will be soft. If it seems like your dinosaur cookie dough will be too soft to roll, you can add another tablespoon or two of flour, but it’s supposed to be really soft. If you are only colouring some of the dough, this is when you should divide it, and knead the colour in. Be aware, this method is messy!
Lightly dust 2 pieces of parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Divide the dough into 2 equal parts, and place one on each piece of parchment. Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll out to a ¼” thickness.
Lightly dust one of your sheets of cookie dough with flour and then cover with parchment. Place the second piece of cookie dough on top. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, or up to 24; if you can wait that long! It’s important to chill your dinosaur cookie dough. It stops it from spreading in the oven. If you cook them right away like I did the first time (I was impatient and wanted cookies!), they spread out and they all stick together. My dinosaur cookies didn’t look much like dinosaurs. Don’t skip this step!
After you have been VERY PATIENT, and waited the full 2 hours (or more? Wow, you’re good!), it’s time to get baking your dinosaur cookies! Preheat the oven to 350°, and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper. Take your cookie dough out of the fridge, one at a time. Carefully run your hand under the top sheet if it is sticking a bit. Be careful; it can be delicate. This is where it starts getting fun! Get out those dinosaur cookie cutters, and go wild! Stegosaurus, T-Rex, triceratops…How many different dinosaurs will you make? If you want to add decorations that bake on (like my eyes) add them now. As you cut out your dinosaur shapes, you can re-roll the excess cookie dough to get more cookies. Use it all up, don’t waste it!
Place your dinosaurs on your cookie sheet, about 3″ apart and bake for 11-12 minutes, or until lightly browned. When you run out of cookies to bake, start cutting out the other sheet of cookie dough. It’s best to leave it in the fridge until you are ready to cut and bake it. If you can, it’s even better to place the cut out (and decorated) cookies in the fridge until they are ready to go in the oven. My cookie sheet just fits in my fridge, so while one is baking, I chill the next one.
Place your dinosaur cookies to cool on a wire rack for 5 min before removing them from the pan. They will be quite soft right out of the oven. Once they are fully cooled, it’s time to add any additional decorations! You can store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, or in the fridge for up to 10. Honestly though, will they last that long? Mine never do!
Bonus tips:
To warm up your egg, place it in a bowl of warm (not hot) water for 5 min. It will warm up the egg to room temperature!
To soften your butter: You can remove your butter from the fridge in the morning and let it soften on the counter for a few hours. However, if you are a last minute type baker like I am, this won’t work for you. Instead, boil your kettle. While the kettle is boiling, cube your butter and place it on a small plate. Once the water has boiled, fill a glass or metal bowl that is large enough to cover the plate with the hot water and let it sit for a minute. Pour it out, dry the hot bowl, and put it upside down over the plate for 3-5 min. The heat from the bowl will soften your butter!
Happy Dinosaur Cookie Baking!
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