Back when I was on maternity leave and trying to do some theme weeks for Julius I discovered that one of the state parks in Massachusetts is called Dinosaur Footprints. I’ve never been to it, but it sounded awesome! I decided to make one of our weeks dinosaur themed. In addition to taking out dinosaur books from the library we did lots of dinosaur activities. We made a paper plate dinosaur craft, dug dinosaurs out of our kinetic sand, made dinosaur footprint cookies, and finally had a picnic at Dinosaur Footprints park. I think it was rather successful week. (Actually it spanned Easter so it was technically two weeks…)
Checking out the information on the dino footprints.
There are two footprints in this photo! The one on the left is the size of Julius, the one on the right is tiny!
Footprint photo
Roar!
For the footprint cookies, I wanted to make those jam thumbprint cookies with a dinosaur footprint instead of a thumbprint. I was craving chocolate though so I wanted to use chocolate instead of jam for the thumbprint. Luckily I didn’t even have to invent the recipe. I used this complete recipe as is – it is completely fabulous. The shortbread is amazing on it’s own and the ganache takes it up to spectacular. My only changes to the recipe were to chill the dough for 30 minutes before baking, repress the footprint indent in the cookies after baking, and let the ganache set for A LONG TIME before pouring. It took like an hour to set up, so this is not something you can whip together instantly. My sister-in-law made the cookies for her dino week and confirmed my changes. She also mentioned it was a bit tricky for Finn to press the footprints, so I think it might be easier for a 3.25 year old than a 2.75 year old…
Nom nom nom.
Chocolate Ganache Footprint Cookies
What you’ll need:
- 1 batch of cookie dough from this recipe
- 1/3 batch of ganache from this recipe
- 1 large t-rex plastic dinosaur with distinct footprint
- Have your child give the dinosaur a bath, and clean the dinosaur thoroughly with dish soap.
Washing the dinosaur
- Dry off the dinosaur.
Giving the dinosaur a snuggly towel dry
- Roll dough by tablespoon into a ball and place on a cookie sheet. Have the child flatten gently with their hand.
Pressing the footprint into the cookie.
- Have child gently press the dinosaur’s foot into the flattened cookie about 3/4 way through the dough. Take care to avoid pressing through to the cookie sheet, or cookie will break.
Finished cookies ready to go in the fridge
- Chill dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- While dough is chilling, make the ganache.
- Bake cookies at 375 F for 8 to 10 minutes until done but still light in color.
- Re-press the dinosaur foot into the original indent (which will have puffed up slightly while cooking)
Baked cookies, after being repressed
- Remove to cooling rack.
Cookies after they’ve been re-pressed.
- While cookies are cooling, see if ganache has set – you want it to be a tiny bit liquidy so it will set flat in the footprint. Carefully pour ganache into the footprint.
Filling the cookies
- Let cookies set overnight until ganache has hardened.
Dinosaur eyeing the goods.
