Dinosaur Eggs

I made some dinosaur eggs for the kids' Easter baskets and they turned out really cute.  I used this basic recipe:

1 cup used coffee grounds
1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup sand
3/4 cup water

Then, because I had more dinosaurs to hide than this batch would make, I added about the same amounts of everything, but omitted the coffee grounds because I was out.  Once I shaped the "egg" around the little plastic dinosaur (purchased at the dollar store) I placed them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and baked them in the oven on 175 for about an hour.  It dried out the tops nicely, then I flipped them over and tried to get the bottoms to dry.  When we opened them, we discovered that the insides were still a little soft, but they were still plenty difficult for the kids (ages almost 5 and 2) to break into.

The dinosaur eggs in the Easter basket.

First, we tried banging them on the driveway.

Then we discovered that standing on them worked better to crack them.

Dorothy tries the brute strength method.

Malcolm shows off his first discovery.  He was pretty unimpressed with having dinosaur eggs in his Easter basket (where are the toys?) until he discovered there were things inside.

Dorothy finally broke one of hers apart.

Once he figured out how to get them open, he had no trouble.

One of my favorite things was when the kids were shouting out, "Parasaurolophus!" when they would uncover that kind of dinosaur. Please excuse how silly I sound, but here is a video.