How to Make T-Rex Dinosaur Cookies

Now that Easter is officially over, I like to spend the upcoming months and into summer exploring new cookie ideas. The past six months between Halloween and Easter is what I like to refer to as "prime time cookie time." It's a busy holiday period when a cookier's life usually seems high-paced and often times high-stressed. However, after Easter, everything seems to go at a much slower pace, which is a nice relief. I like to use this down time to try out new designs and themes I wouldn’t have time to explore otherwise-- like these dinosaur cookies.

When I asked for suggestions of future cookie cutter ideas, I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of requests for dinosaur cookies. That’s a theme I’ve always been really eager to do, but I haven’t had a chance to fit in. Until now.

Dinosaur Cookie Cutters

Just added to the shop are SIX! new dinosaur cookie cutter designs. What I tried to keep in mind when designing these dinosaur cookie cutters was to keep each overall shape sturdy as possible without sacrificing any level of cuteness.

Dinosaurs can have long necks and tails, but I made sure to strengthen those areas by keeping them stubby and close to the body. Also, I designed all the arms and legs as one solid piece, with the overall body more compact. Hopefully by doing so, this will help prevent any breakage when these cookies are handled or even shipped.

This dinosaur cookie cutter collection include four dinos: a stegosaurus, a brontosaurus, a triceratops, and a tyrannosaurus rex (or T-rex). Also, I made two more cookie designs as sort of supplemental background cookies for this dinosaur set: a sturdy palm tree, and an exploding volcano.

These dinosaur cookie cutters are available in a variety of sizes, however all the cookies shown in this tutorial are the REGULAR size.

Template for the Dinosaur Cookies

To help with the decorating process, I made a PDF template of all of the dinosaur cookies shown. This 2-page template includes all four dinosaur designs, as well as the palm tree and the volcano designs.

You can download the dinosaur cookie template HERE.

If you have a Kopykake or Pico projector, just print it out (or pull it up on your mobile device) and you are good to go. For those without a projector, follow the suggested steps below by tracing the design onto the cookie with an edible food marker.

The Decorating Process

For this tutorial, I'll be decorating the REGULAR size T-Rex dinosaur cookies. However, the same decorating technique can be applied similarly to the other 3 dinosaur shapes.

For the colors I used for these T-Rex dinosaur cookies you will need the following suggested colors:

• Ivory icing. (I used Americolor Ivory.)
• Burnt Orange piping and flood icing. (I mixed equal parts Americolor Lemon Yellow and Tulip Red, with a touch of Ivory.)
• Gold Mustard flood icing. (I mixed equal parts Americolor Gold and Copper, with a touch of Warm Brown.)
• White medium icing. (I used Americolor Bright White.)
• Black piping icing. (I used Americolor Super Black.)

Step 1

For those using the template method, begin by marking the guidelines on the cookie, as shown below. Be sure to make guidelines for the jaw line, the belly, and the leg.

Step 2

Next, fill the belly section with ivory icing. Don't forget the tiny part behind the leg. Let that set for 15 minutes.

Fill the head, body, and legs area with the burnt orange icing. Be sure to avoid the toe nail area; we'll get to that in a second. While icing is still wet, quickly add the gold spot accents. Give the cookie a good shape to smooth out the icing into a flat surface. Let the icing set for about 20 minutes.

Step 3

Once the base layer of icing had time to dry, add the arm detail with orange icing. Also, fill in every other toenail with white icing. Let this icing set for about 15 minutes.

Next, add the other arm, the remaining toenails, and and eye accent as shown. Let the cookie dry completely before moving on.

Step 4

The final step is to outline all the fine details. I used a #1 PME tip to outline around the body, around the arms, and between the legs. I also piped a simple smile to finish off the cookie.

Video Tutorial

The steps above are summarized in the time-lapsed video below.

The decorating steps I showed for these T-Rex dinosaur cookies can easily be applied to the three other dinosaurs, as well.

However, if you are pressed for time and need to decorate these dinosaurs fairly quickly, I have a suggestion. These dinosaur cookies can be simplified even more if you opt for a solid base color without the accent spots or the ivory bellies. The dinosaur cookies would look just as cute, but with just a few less steps and with fewer required icing colors.

As mentioned above, along with this dinosaur set I included two additional "supporting" cookie designs -- a palm tree and a volcano.

Both cookie cutters were also designed to be sturdy like the dinosaur cookies. That's the reason you see small patches of "naked cookie" exposed under the leaves of the palm tree. Having that extra cookie surface helps strengthen where the trunk meets the leaves.

Hopefully, you enjoyed this random dinosaur cookie theme. I'm planning to explore more random but fun themes in the coming months. I hope everyone has a Grrr-reat week!