Fossil Cookies
What you’ll need:
Sugar cookies
Rubber or plastic bugs and such
Already did a pirate party? Already had a Lego party? What about a little sailor’s party? Did that one? If you’re having a hard time deciding on a birthday party theme for a little boy, consider an archaeological dig. Even if your child has shown no interest in such, he’ll love it, and so will his friends. If it’s nice outside, hide prizes in the sandbox, and let the kids dig with shovels to find them. You can hide things like play snakes and bugs, rubber dinosaurs, and other fun toys. Eventually, the kids come inside, and they’ll be wowed when they see that you’ve made fossil cookies. The boys could look right at them and think the cookies are stones that contain fossils; in reality, they’re yummy desserts – that aren’t millions of years old!
Sugar cookies are the best choice for making fossil cookies. Kids love them and the cookies take an imprint well. When you imprint sugar cookies, you create intriguing fossil cookies, that kids might struggle with whether to eat or to collect. Make your own sugar cookies, whip up a boxed mix, or just use refrigerated cookie dough. Roll out the dough, cut generous round cookies, and put them on a baking sheet. To make them more impressive, break pieces off of the dough, and make circles that aren’t perfect. Bake the crumbles along with the cookies; they might need to be removed a few minutes before the whole cookies.
Don’t like sugar cookies? There are other cookies that do alright when it comes to making edible fossils. Peanut butter cookies are a good second choice, and there are others, but make sure that any cookies you bake are ones without protruding goodies, such as chunks of chocolate and/or nuts.
A plastic or rubber bug makes a great fossil imprint on a sugar cookie. You might find some at the bottom of the child’s toy box; you can also purchase them at a dollar-theme store. Wash the toys and use them with the imprint technique to make the particular fossils that you want on the cookies. Some good ones are large flies, butterflies, centipedes, worms, and grasshoppers. Lay the bug on the cookie and press down to leave an imprint of the fossil.
Bake the cookies according to recipe or package. Allow them to cool before serving. These cookies don’t need frosting, which will cover up the bug images. Just serve them with some milk and the kids will be begging for more. Yep, they’ll eat all of those fossil cookies that you worked so hard on (not really), so sneak some back for yourself. You don’t want to miss out on fossil cookies, either!
