This blog post will again be about dinosaurs. It is a quite fun activity to share with your child at home and will result in some delicious biscuits.

First, choose 4 to 5 small dinosaur toys to use as cookie stamps. Wash them well with soap and water, then let them dry while you make the biscuit dough.

Second, you need to make some shortcrust pastry dough:

You need:

• 200 g plain flour
• 100 g butter
• 50 g sugar
• 1 egg
• baking paper

What to do:

1. Put the flour and sugar into a big bowl.
2. Cut the butter into small cubes. Add it to the bowl.
3. Rub the butter and flour together with your fingers until it looks like breadcrumbs.
4. Add the egg.
5. Mix gently until the dough comes together. Do not make it too sticky.
6. Shape the dough into a ball.
7. Wrap it and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Now your shortcrust pastry dough is ready to use! You can roll it out and make some dinosaur fossil biscuits!

How to continue:

1. Roll out the dough.
2. Use a plastic knife or another blunt knife to cut the dough into smaller pieces. The pieces should still be big enough to have room for you dinosaur toys. (See image.)
3. Press the dinosaur toys into the dough. You can make footprints or press them in lying on their side.
4. Place baking paper inside an oven-proof tray.
5. Then remove the toys and place the cookies on the baking tray.
6. Bake at 200 degC for 10 to 15 minutes in the oven. (Ask an adult for help with this part.)
7. Remove the baking tray from the oven and let the biscuits cool. (Again, ask an adult for help with this.)

Background

This activity illustrates how imprint fossils are made. Examples are footprints of dinosaurs or other animals which you can also make with this experiment. Imprints of plant parts like leaves are common too. You can also find imprints left by whole animals which you can also make with this experiment. Some imprints found from dinosaurs have even included feathers which is how we know that some dinosaurs like velociraptor had feathers!