Delight the little boy in your life with these dinosaur cookies.
Making these dinosaur cookies paleontologically correct was not my intention here. It always amuses me how dinosaurs are often portrayed as being cute when they were anything but.
Dinosaurs are so remote from our own species and times and pre-Ted I don’t think I’d though much about them apart from viewings of Jurassic Park. Then I noticed we teach children about them almost from birth. There’s Barney, dinosaur toys in all the shops. Even Peppa Pig’s little brother George carries a toy dinosaur. Our kids can’t escape dinosaurs, I bought these dinosaur cookie cutters specifically for Ted.
I was impressed that even by age 4 he understood dinosaurs no longer exist. Considering a rhino looks quite similar, it’s a strange concept for a pre-schooler to grasp that some animals live in Africa, some live in the zoo and some well, just don’t live at all anymore. It’s as far removed as ‘When Grandaddy was a little boy he had steam trains like Thomas at the bottom of his garden.’
Dinosaurs cut out of my chocolate cookie dough recipe
Ted’s reception class were learning about dinosaurs last year and with an inset day due, I decided a trip to the Natural History Museum was an essential rite of passage. The trip was bigged up for weeks in advance. We told everyone we were going to see the giant dinosaur skeletons.
The animated dinosaur in the Natural History Museum was in a dark murky room. Ted dragged me through at high speed. He was more interested in the skeleton in the entrance that comes to life if you put £1 in the slot. I realised the action of putting money in was more fascinating to him than the creature itself.
So the much hyped dinosaur visit was a bit of an anticlimax. Ted preferred the TV screens in each gallery that were equipped with bar code scanners to program which exhibits you’d revisit on the internet back home. Ted wasn’t remotely interested in the dinosaurs, just the technology on show.
Around ten months later Ted announced he’d like to go and visit the dinosaurs again. This was a surprise as generally Ted requests visits to the Science Museum with all its gadgets and aeroplanes.
‘Maybe we go to the Natural History Museum?’
Ted’s instructions are generally prefixed with ‘maybe’. Like an expertly directed missile.
‘You want to go there? Ok I think daddy can take you on Saturday.’ I replied.
‘Then afterwards go to Knightsbridge.’ Ted continued.
Knightsbridge? Where has my child heard of Knightsbridge? I wondered to myself.
‘Did you say er…Knightsbridge? Why Knightsbridge?’
‘To go to Yo! Sushi.’ He chirped.
Ted had remembered that after our last visit to the dinosaurs we did indeed visit Harvey Nichols and go to Yo! Sushi on the top floor. He didn’t especially want to go to the Natural History Museum, he wanted to go to Yo! Sushi and watch the little plates go round on the conveyor belt.
Never mind the dinosaurs then. Ted has a memory like an elephant.
Dinosaur Cookies
Ingredients
- One batch cookie dough chilled and ready to roll (see my chocolate cookie dough recipe)
- extra flour for rolling use cocoa for chocolate cookie dough
- 1 batch royal icing
- extra icing sugar for adjusting icing consistency
- lemon juice for adjusting icing consistency
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180c / Gas mark 4.
- Roll out the dough to 5mm thick, dusting the surface with a little extra flour if necessary. Cut out dinosaur shapes.
- Bake for around 10 minutes. Allow them to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack then leave to cool completely.
- Meanwhile split your royal icing into different batches. Retain one quarter to keep white in case you run out of other colours. The rest, you can split into two or three colours, I made my dinosaurs green and grey. From each of the coloured icings, remove 2 tablespoons and decant into a smaller container. Add to each, more colour and more icing sugar to make thicker icing for the borders.
- Using disposable bags fitted with no2 size Tala tips, fill each bag with the thicker border icing. Pipe borders around your dinosaurs. Immediately flood each cookie with the respective colour and drag icing to the edges with cocktail sticks. This works best if you do it in batches of 1-2 cookies at a time.
- Let the flooded cookies dry out. When completely dry pipe extra detail and eyes on them. You can do a white dot onto which to pipe a black pupil as I did with these green dinosaurs if you like.
- Allow to dry completely. The cookies will keep in a tub for 1-2 weeks however the borders may bleed a little after a couple of days. If you are a perfectionist, you can reduce the likelihood of this by using a border the same colour as the flooded area and letting the cookie dry completely before piping a darker border.
i stumbled apon delightfull page as my boy max is 2 and really into dinosaurs now given me idea take him museum see them and ive not been sushi bar i might go take look my friend went japan and was amasing range on plates his videos so i shall attept your cookies and save bookmark to your site also nice hear you spend time your son quite bit as well these times he remember for ever and hopefully he might be cook as well he is older thanks lovely site and recipies
I would not put it past Ted to tell the musuem staff that they have it all wrong by not using Apples – or maybe they do for the exhibits?
Was that the time I met you in Yo?
LOL yes it was. As you know, that was AGES ago!
These dinosaurs look fantastic. So no chance that Ted becomes a paleontologist then.
Noooo, web programmer or graphic designer very possibly!
These are so cute! And a great entry for the letter D – thanks for entering this month’s Alphabakes!
Such a cute story! Good Sushi is worth remembering. Love the chocolate biscuit too!
Deirdre @ http://thekitschcook.blogspot.ie/
Deirdre – he does like eating sushi but I suspect it’s the conveyor belt that’s the main attraction!!
So despite the fact we feed our children non stop dinosaurs, Ted has managed to by pass it. Oh I do love an independent boy. He cookies look great too. GG
Oh yes, this boy has a mind of his own alright!!
Love the cookies but why “for little boys”, particularly as it seems dinosaurs aren’t even that big of an interest for Ted? There are loads of little girls who’d love dinosaur cookies too, I know because I was one of them when I was little, and to be honest I’d still love them now! Dinosaurs are cool for everyone, is there really any need to gender them??
Yes I see your point. I might just as easily said they were for children and then I’d have had people saying grown ups like them too?
Except there’s not really a societal narrative saying dinosaurs are for kids and not for grown-ups, certainly not in the same way as “boy’s stuff” and “girl’s stuff” is divided up. Just think it reinforces a bad binary standard between what little boys are expected or even allowed to like and what little girls are expected or allowed to like.
I can’t argue with you. Although I will add that I read Camille Paglia at university. I imagine she’s deeply unfashionable nowadays?
Sarah- I have to say I’m a little fond of the conveyor belt and the bright and colourful sushi plates too!
You must spend alot of time getting back to everyone who comments!
Deirdre @ http://www.thekitschcook.blogspot.com
Thank you for sharing this recipe. Memories of Ted’s dinosaur birthday party. The cookies were delicious though I can’t see me actually making them myself. ?