OW OPENS ON A WORLD HALF A BILLION YEARS OLD: Paleontologist Charles Walcott is almost at the end of his year's fieldwork in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia when he discovers the Burgess Shale, a formation teeming with the fossils of soft-bodied organisms 508 million years old. The Middle Cambrian field will yield weird and wonderful discoveries.

The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. The deposit is approximately 508 million years old (middle Cambrian), making it one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints 12. The deposit was discovered by Charles Walcott, a paleontologist, on August 30, 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork. He returned in 1910 with his family and established a quarry on the flanks of Fossil Ridge. The significance of soft-bodied preservation and the range of organisms he recognized as new to science led him to return to the quarry almost every year until 1924. At that point, he had amassed over 65,000 specimens. Describing the fossils was a vast task, pursued by Walcott until his death in 1927 1. It was not until 1962 that a first-hand reinvestigation of the fossils was attempted by Alberto Simonetta. This led scientists to recognize that Walcott had barely scratched the surface of information available in the Burgess Shale and also made it clear that the organisms did not fit comfortably into modern groups.

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06

Title: Dinosaur Cookies
Categories: Five, Cookies, Novelty
Yield: 6 cookies

8 oz Sugar cookie dough
16 oz Stiff white royal icing;
- prepared according to pkg
- instructions
10 dr Orange sunset gel food color
6 dr Lemon yellow gel food color
3 dr Black gel food color

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT: toothpicks, triceratops-shaped cookie cutter,
disposable piping bags, #1 round tip, #2 round tip, coupler

Set the oven @ 325+|F/165+|C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place the cookie dough between two sheets of parchment paper. With a
rolling pin, roll out the dough until it is about 1/4" thick. Set the
rolled dough in the freezer for 15 minutes to firm.

Cut out cookies with a triceratops-shaped cookie cutter. Place the
cookies roughly 2" apart on the parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze
for 5 more minutes. Transfer the cookies and the parchment paper to a
new baking sheet and bake until the bottoms are just golden brown and
the centers are no longer doughy, about 15 minutes, rotating the baking
sheet about halfway through baking.

Allow the cookies to cool before transferring them to a cooling rack.

For the base coat, put about 6 ounces of the royal icing in a medium
bowl. Add 5 drops of orange food color and 2 drops of yellow food color
and stir with a rubber spatula to combine. Gradually add a teaspoon of
water at a time until the icing is the consistency of thin yogurt; when
you scoop some up with a spoon and let it drip back into the bowl, the
lines should settle out. (Don't add too much water all at once; the
icing should not be watery or it will run off the edges of the cookies.)
Cover the bowl with a damp paper towel until ready to use.

Put 2 ounces of the royal icing in a small bowl. Add a few drops of
water at a time until the icing is the consistency of thick yogurt.
Transfer the icing to a disposable piping bag fitted with a coupler and
a #1 round piping tip.

For the dark-orange spots on the dinosaurs, put about 3 ounces of the
royal icing in a medium bowl. Add 5 drops of the orange food color and 1
drop of yellow and stir with a rubber spatula to combine. Add food color
as needed until a shade slightly darker than the base coat is achieved.
Add a few drops of water at a time until the icing is the consistency of
thick yogurt. Transfer the icing to a disposable piping bag fitted with
a coupler and a #1 round piping tip.

For the light-yellow outlines on the dinosaurs, put roughly 3 ounces of
the white royal icing in a medium bowl. Add 3 drops of the yellow food
color and stir to combine with a rubber spatula. Add food color as
needed until a nice pale yellow is achieved. Gradually add a few drops
of water at a time and mix until the icing is pipeable and slightly
fluid, like thick yogurt. Transfer the icing to a disposable piping bag
fitted with a coupler and a #2 round piping tip.

For the dinosaurs' eyes, put 2 ounces of white royal icing in a small
bowl. Color the royal icing black by adding 2 to 3 drops of black food
color. Stir to combine using a rubber spatula, adding a few drops of
water until a thick yogurt consistency is. Transfer the icing to a
disposable piping bag fitted with a coupler and a #1 round piping tip.

Once the cookies have cooled, flip the cookies upside down by holding
the edge of the cookie. One at a time, dip the top of a cookie into the
lighter orange base coat icing, moving the cookie slightly to make sure
the top is coated entirely. The icing should not come up the sides of
the cookies. Flip the cookie back over and jiggle the cookie slightly to
help smooth out any lumps. Use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles and
smooth out the icing. Place on the cooling rack and repeat with the
remaining cookies until they are all coated.

Next, while the cookies are still wet, use the dark-orange icing to make
3 to 4 spots along the back of the triceratops and slightly above the
legs. Allow the cookies to dry for at least an hour.

Using the white icing, pipe three small dots at the base of each of the
two feet. Fill in the triangle shaped points sticking out of the head of
the dinosaur to create two horns on each. Next pipe another horn on each
that is the same size directly across from the horn towards the top of
the head.

Pipe an eye with the black icing on each, creating a small curved line
just between the two horns on the triceratops head.

For the border, pipe the light-yellow icing around the edge of each
cookie, following the shape of the cookie. Next, pipe details to outline
the legs, continuing the lines of the legs slightly upwards towards the
body of the triceratops. Pipe what looks like a fishhook to create the
mouths, swooping upwards towards the eye.

Allow the cookies to dry completely before serving.

RECIPE FROM: https://www.foodnetwork.com

Uncle Dirty Dave's Archives

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... "A cheapskate won't tip a server. I'm just careful with my money" Dave Drum

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