Mwahahahaha! DINOSAURS.
If anyone know's me, they'll know that I absolutely adore dinosaurs. Inflatable dinosaurs, dinosaurs in jar or a regular old fossilised dinosaur, I LOVE THEM. So really, what better way is there to express my love, than to eat them? So, with a help of my friend and her cookie cutters, these sexy, tasty beasts were born. That didn't sound right in my head nor look right on my screen. I'm gonna leave that sentence there.
These are actually just basic sugar cookies with royal icing and a lot of food colouring, so they are really easy to make. The only thing is that dinosaur cookie cutters are really detailed and have toes and everything so they are really hard to cut out. Therefore it is really important you chill the dough for a long time. On the plus side, while waiting for your cookies to bake, you have three awesome cutters that are begging to be played with. Seriously, make your t-rex and triceratops battle, you'll thank me for it. Just make sure nobody else is in the room though. This activity tends to generate funny looks from other people.
We initially tried to pipe a border of icing on the cookies and then flooded the inside but this proved to be both inefficient and really ugly. Instead, we used a palate knife to just spread the icing on. The stripes/spots were piped on later with leftover icing.
Oh! Black icing is impossible to make. Well no it isn't, but I epically failed at it. I ended up using about half a bottle of 4 different food colouring and ended up making and ugly khaki green. Not pretty and I ended up throwing it into the sink. There goes $1.72. My asian-side is crying. I ended up just melting chocolate to pipe on the eyes. And I couldn't resist adding blood to the mouths of the t-rexes. Who knew bloody, carnivores could look so cute?
[In most of my recipes, I reduce the sugar a fair bit as even though I am a sweet tooth, I hate it when things are sickeningly sweet]
sugar cookies (makes around 30 dinosaurs)
225g butter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
3 cups flour
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy with an electric mixer or if you are real tank, by hand.
2. Add in the eggs and vanilla extract and beat until combined.
3. Add the flour, salt and baking soda until a dough is formed.
4. Separate the dough into two and wrap each one in plastic wrap. Put this in the fridge for at least an hour to firm it up.
5. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius. Also line two baking tins with baking paper.
6. Roll out your dough until it is around half a centimetre thick.
7. Proceed to use your awesome dinosaur cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. Either grease or flour your cookie cutter to prevent them from sticking to the dough.
8. Put the cut cookies in the fridge for 15 minutes. This makes sure they retain their dinosaur shape during baking.
9. Bake them in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until brown.
10. Leave to cool on tray for a while until transferring to a wire rack.
royal icing
2 egg whites
2-3 cups icing sugar. (If you want to pipe the icing, add more sugar to make it more stiff)
Food colouring
50g chocolate
1. Sift or put the icing sugar in a food processor to remove the lumps.
2. Beat the egg white with an electric mixer and gradually add the sugar until smooth and combined.
3. Separate into bowls and add food colouring in.
4. Spread or pipe the icing onto the cooled cookies (Make sure they are completely cooled).
5. Pipe on details with leftover icing.
6. Melt chocolate in the microwave and pipe on eyes.
7. Let the icing set. This may take several hours.
And hooray! DINOSAURS. They as so incredibly tasty and also incredibly fun to play with. However, try to refrain from playing with them too much because after a while, it becomes a little too unhygienic to eat. You can use the recipe to make any other cookies but I think it should be concluded that dinosaurs own all.
For all you browncoats out there, I had to do this...
Okay yes I know it is meant to be a stegosaurus but hey, I had to make do. If anyone does not get the reference, do yourself a favour and go watch "Firefly". Best 15 hours of television ever.
Until next time then. Remember, fruit and vegetables are for the weak. Sugar, all the way.
