The easiest dinosaur cupcakes: how to turn normal cupcakes into prehistoric treats

Do your cupcakes “RAWR?”

Roll into a ball, form a tip, squash. Roll into a ball, form a tip, squash. Who knew our playdough modelling skills would be so handy to make Stegosaurus cupcakes?

These are easy, perhaps even the easiest dinosaur cupcakes you will find. These don’t require any new gadgets or tools, just a bit of patience and some rudimentary playdough modelling skills. And you can easily change the colour and flavour to suit any birthday party colour scheme or dietary restrictions, as required.

Disclosure:
Some of the links below are affiliate links. We may earn a small commission if you use these links to make a purchase. Thank you! Please read our full disclosure for more information. 

Why you need to make these dinosaur cupcakes

We‘ve all been to a party, with a least one person who has food allergies. At a recent party, we had two little dinosaurs who have dairy, egg and nut allergies.

The beauty of these dinosaur cupcakes is that you can use any type of cupcake and frosting that you want or need to take any food allergies into account. All you need is some fondant.

Make your own, buy some or use a packet mix: whatever suits your time and budget. 

Our cupcakes were vegan (dairy and egg-free) and nut-free chocolate cupcakes with creamy vegan chocolate frosting (I used this recipe from our sister site). Fondant is normally vegan, nut-free and gluten-free, trans-fat free and kosher (though check your brand).

There are three other welcome reasons to make these dinosaur cupcakes:

1. You can almost any colour or shade of fondant you wish to suit your party theme (dino of course). If you can’t find it in the shade you want, you can colour it yourself (see below). Or dip the backplates in edible glitter (like we did in the image below).
2. You don’t need much time to make them – great for busy Dinomamas.
3. You only need one extra ingredient and don’t need any extra tools or forms to make these dinosaur cupcake decorations. I‘m all about simplicity and ease!
4. These are perhaps the easiest dinosaur cupcakes you will find. Our LDA made about one-quarter of them.

How to use fondant

If this was solely a cooking blog, I could write a whole post about using fondant. Instead, we‘ll stick to the basics:

1. Warm the fondant in your hands: Knead it between your palms and it will quickly become pliant.
2. Use gel food colouring to colour it: I didn‘t have a lot of time, so I cheated and bought coloured fondant. If you have fondant that you need to colour, dip the end of a skewer or toothpick in your food colouring and then stab your fondant 4 or 5 times. Work it in until it is all an even colour.
3. You probably won‘t need a whole packet of fondant. We used about one-third of a 250g packet for 18 cupcakes. 
4. To store leftover fondant: Wrap it in plastic and place it in an airtight container. Store at room temperature out of direct light. It will keep for about 2 months.
5. No need to roll it out: The dino spikes are easiest to form in your hands. In fact, rolling them out often leads to them looking more like dragon spikes than Stegosaurus back plates.

How to make the back plates for your Stegosaurus cupcakes

I found the easiest way to make the backplates for these Stegosaurus-inspired cupcakes is as follows: 

1. Roll a small amount of fondant into a ball
2. Squash the ball between your index finger and thumb
3. Form one side into a rough point.
4. Flatten the other side so that it looks like a bulging 2D triangle – or Stegosaurus-esque back plate.
5. Repeat 4-5 times per cupcake.

Don‘t make the back plates too large or they will sink into your frosting or fall over/off. Four to five plates are enough for these Stegosaurus-inspired treats: the easiest dinosaur cupcakes you will find.

Tip: If you can, serve your cupcakes on a tray that is a similar colour to the back plates. We used a blue cake stand to go with our blue spikes (and the top screws off to make it easier to store!).

Make some of the easiest dinosaur cupcakes for your next dinosaur birthday party!

These dinosaur cupcakes are so easy to make and can use any cupcakes as the base. This makes them perfect for busy Dinomamas and easy to adapt to almost any dietary restrictions. Your little dinosaur fan will proudly utilise their playdough modelling skills to help you make these prehistoric treats, too!

Now, if you’d excuse me, I have some more back plates to make. Roll, form a point, squash.

What cupcakes will you turn into dinosaur cupcakes?

Save for later

Sharing is caring!