Shortbread Fossil Cookies

We love tying snacks into our new weekly themes, which led us to create these yummy shortbread fossil cookies. Not only did they fit in with the dinosaur fun we've been having, but they are perfectly delicious too!

I've seen a couple of recipes like this before, but we based ours on a buttery shortbread. For this recipe I did most of the prep work and cooking while Big Brother helped with pressing in the images. This is a very soft dough, and as it was a very warm day that made the rolling and cutting of the dough a little trickier. 

Ingredients:

2 sticks of unsalted butter (softened to room temperature) 

1/2 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

2. Mix the flour, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a separate bowl. 

3. In a large mixing bowl beat the sugar and butter until creamed together than add in the vanilla. 

4. Gently add in the flour mixture until just combined, the dough should be able to come together as a smooth ball. 

5. Place in a small bowl and chill in the refrigerator for at least 10 minutes to an hour. (I found a half hour worked okay.)

6. On a well floured surface pat or roll the dough so it is about 1/4 inch thick. Use a small circle cookie cutter to cut out circles and place them onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. 

7. Place the cut out circles back into the refrigerator for 5 minutes. (This will make them a little firmer again and will make the images more crisp when they're pressed into the cookie.) 

8. Use washed dinosaur or insect toys, or even cleaned shells, to press images into the dough. 

9. When the whole sheet is pressed bake in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Bake until the edges are just a little brown. 

10. Cool on the pan for about 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack using a spatula. (Again, they're such a soft cookie they need a little time to set up on the tray and then need a spatula to help move them. But they will set up on the wire rack as they cool more.)

Big Brother enjoyed experimenting with using different parts of the dinosaurs to create fossils.

Even adult family members couldn't resist these yummy, dinosaur themed treats! We're loving these fun themed recipes. Did you check out our pudding beach cups we made last week?