Dinosaur footprint cookies with cinnamon & vanilla

Deliciously dunkable vanilla and cinnamon flavoured cookies, imprinted with dinosaur footprints or fossils! A treat for dino-enthusiasts of all ages.

My daughter Kipper recently had an EPIC dinosaur themed birthday party. We had a great time playing dinosaur games, and eating delicious birthday food. And a party must have treats, so I knew I’d have to make something sweet to go in the party bags as a tasty reminder of the fun.

Less-sweet treats

One way to maintain control of the added sugar (and food colouring, artificial flavouring etc) in children’s food is by making it yourself. You can make sure that recipes are lower in sugar or other additives, and cut back on frosting etc if you want to.

Giving the children treats to take home also means that their party-induced sugar consumption doesn’t all happen in the few hours that the party takes place. Their parents can take some responsibility for managing the post-party goodies – even saving them for another day.

These dinosaur footprint cookies are by no means sugar-free, but they don’t have any icing, which helps. Each cookie contains just 5g sugar – about 1 tsp.

Fossilised cookies?

Following our prehistoric theme, I decided to make cookies imprinted with fossils and dinosaur footprints. These are so easy to make! I simply needed a firmish, roll-out-able cookie dough that wouldn’t rise too much, and I ultimately settled on an adapted version of the gingerbread recipe from Tamasin’s Kitchen Bible.

This dough is super-easy to make, rolls and cuts beautifully, and bakes to a crisp, golden tasty cookie. If you’re a bit more than five years old, you may also find that these biscuits are terrific dunkers, holding up well when immersed in hot liquid and becoming pleasantly chewy without falling into crumbs. 

Cinnamon and vanilla cookies

I flavoured the biscuits with cinnamon and vanilla, and then dusted a little cinnamon sugar into the footprints/fossil prints. They’re deliciously fragrant, and very more-ish!

I used a plain round cutter, then impressed dinosaur footprints in half of the cookies using some of Kipper’s little dinosaurs (see photo). The other half were imprinted with ammonite fossils, using one of the little plastic ammonites that came with Kipper’s Fossil Hunter Lottie Doll (which is a fabulous gift for any dinosaur/fossil obsessed small person). 

I was pretty pleased with the results, if I do say so myself. I wrapped the biscuits in cellophane bags, tied with a ribbon, and popped them into the party bags. Roaaarrr!

I put two biscuits in each party bag, and also had a plate of these to serve with tea and coffee for the grown-ups at the dinosaur party. The mixture makes 4 dozen cookies, so you may want to halve (or even quarter!) the recipe.

Ingredients in cinnamon and vanilla cookies

To make a yummy batch of these cookies yourself – with or without the fossils! – you will need:

• Butter or margarine – depending on whether you want them to be dairy or parve (dairy free)
• Golden caster sugar – or just use regular white sugar
• Golden syrup – honey, agave syrup or corn syrup also work
• Plain flour – also called ‘all purpose flour’
• Bicarbonate of soda
• Ground cinnamon and vanilla extract for flavour
• A little cinnamon sugar for dusting – completely optional

The dough is easy to make – simply cream the fat and sugar, then mix in the remaining ingredients! Roll out between sheets of baking paper, cut out shapes and bake. Yum!

The perfect snack for dinosaur enthusiasts of all ages!

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📖 Recipe

More dinosaur baking ideas!

Check out the awesome dinosaur fossil excavation birthday cake here.

We also had dinosaur sandwiches and I made some chocolate cupcakes, iced with dino skeletons, for Kipper to take to school.

I’m entering these cookies into November’s Treat Petite, which is on the theme of ‘Autumn’. Kipper’s birthday always falls in the Autumn, so that counts, right?! Treat Petite is organised by  Cakeyboi and The Baking Explorer, who is also hosting this month.