Hatching Dinosaur Cookies

The hatching dinosaur cookies I made, as a story time snack, to go along with Cheryl Bardoe's The Ugly Duckling Dinosaur, A Prehistoric Tale, were inspired by a slightly more complicated version at CakeCentral.com.

I started with a batch of sugar cookie dough, dividing it in half, and adding a couple of tablespoons of baker's cocoa to one half. This is currently my favorite sugar cookie combination, and although I don't have permission to share my favorite recipe with you, I'm working at putting together a recipe of my own, that I will be free to share. In the meantime, any sugar cookie dough recipe will work. (And, did you notice the new "sugar cookie" label on the sidebar? Thanks Annette, for reminding me to get that done.)

I rolled out the chocolate dough, and cut large-ish egg shapes, cutting with a butter knife around a wax paper pattern. Then, I baked them on a greased cookie sheet, at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

While the chocolate eggs were cooling, I started cutting out a second set of eggs from the vanilla dough.

Only this time, I cut a zigzaggy stripe out of the middle of each egg, before baking.

And, when those had cooled, I spread the back sides of the vanilla egg pieces with chocolate peanut butter frosting, made with creamy peanut butter (any frosting would do)...

...and secured a couple of M&M eyes (I thought reds, yellows, and oranges worked best for that glowing-dino-eye effect) into the crack, with frosting...

...using a couple of toothpicks to dab on frosting pupils.

It's great to be a homeschooler.