June, 2014 | Everything Dinosaur Blog

3 06, 2014

A Novel and Easy Dinosaur Birthday Cake Recipe

By Mike|2024-04-12T09:05:56+01:00June 3rd, 2014|Dinosaur Fans, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

Easy to Make Dinosaur Themed Birthday Cake

Everything Dinosaur team members get sent in lots of emails about dinosaur party food. We are happy to send out suggestions and provide advice, our staff like to offer advice on healthy treats such as fruit and vegetable based snacks, but then there comes the problem of the centre piece – the birthday cake itself. Not to worry, here is a simple and easy to follow recipe to make a sponge cake shaped like a meat-eating dinosaur.

Dinosaur Birthday Cake

For dinosaur models and toys check out Everything Dinosaur’s huge range: Dinosaur Themed Toys and Gifts.

A Recipe for a Super Dinosaur Birthday Cake

Simple to make dinosaur birthday cake. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Ingredients

To make each sponge base (you will need to make two sponges, so double these ingredients)

175 grammes (6oz) of butter

175 grammes (6oz) of caster sugar

3 large eggs

175 grammes (6oz) of sieved self-raising flour

To ice and decorate your dinosaur birthday cake

225 grammes (8oz) of icing sugar

225 grammes (8oz) of butter

Few drops of green food colouring

One small pack of mini-marshmallows (to make the teeth)

One small piece of liquorice (to make the mouth)

One jelly button (to make the eye)

One liquorice cartwheel cut into quarters (to make the claws and toes)

Small pack of chocolate mint squares (each one cut in half to make the spines down the back)

As for decorating your dinosaur, you can use anything you like, so be imaginative and we are sure the budding young palaeontologist in the household would be happy to advise and help.

Method

1. Grease two large 20 cm x 30cm (8 inch x 12 inch), baking trays. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and caster sugar together until pale and creamy. Beat eggs in a jug then add them to mixture (a little at a time, beating as you go).

2. Add a quarter of the flour to the mixture, dropping it through the sieve again from a height above the bowl (helps make the sponges light and airy). Gently fold in the flour using a metal spoon. Repeat this process until all the flour is folded in. You should have a mixture that will drop off a spoon easily when the spoon is tapped against the side of the bowl, if the consistency is not right add a tablespoon of hot water.

3. Divide the mixture between the two tins, then place them on the middle shelf of a pre-warmed oven at 170°C / 325°F (Gas mark 3) for 25-30 minutes or until they are pale golden in colour. Remove from the oven and wait a minute then loosen them round the edges with a palette knife turn them out onto a wire cooling tray. Let the sponges cool completely before cutting and decorating.

The Sponge Cake and the Dinosaur Template

Ready to cut out the dinosaur shapes using the template. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Create your own dinosaur template (see picture above for help), make sure you create your template using quite stiff card, as this makes cutting out the sponge shapes using a knife easier. The sponge can then be divided up to make the various parts of the dinosaur. Do not worry about the joins, they will be covered up by the icing and the decorations. Remember to leave the sponge for a while to cool before attempting to cut out your templates.

Everything Dinosaur is a UK-based supplier of dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed models, toys and merchandise, check-out our website: Visit Everything Dinosaur.

2 06, 2014

New Soft and Cuddly Dinosaur Backpacks from Everything Dinosaur

By Mike|2023-03-13T12:06:24+00:00June 2nd, 2014|Dinosaur Fans, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Everything Dinosaur Products, Main Page, Photos of Everything Dinosaur Products, Press Releases|0 Comments

Soft and Cuddly Dinosaur Backpacks

The latest editions to Everything Dinosaur’s huge range of prehistoric animal themed merchandise have just been put up on line. They are soft and cuddly dinosaur themed backpacks, one a Triceratops, the other a colourful Tyrannosaurus rex.

Measuring a generous sixty-three centimetres in length, the Triceratops has been created so that it matches other horned dinosaur soft toys currently available from Everything Dinosaur.

The Soft and Cuddly Triceratops Dinosaur Backpack

A backpack for a young dinosaur fan. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Backpacks

Lightweight and very soft, this horned dinosaur themed backpack proved very popular on test with both girls and boys. The sturdy black straps are adjustable and the backpack is comfortable to wear. It also doubles as a handy pyjama or nightgown case for budding young palaeontologists. The roomy zipped pouch on the back means that you can carry dinosaurs around or even slip in a snack as you go on fossil finding adventures. Mums and dads liked the backpack too, although it is not waterproof, it is sponge washable and the cute expression on the face of this Triceratops appealed.

The Soft and Cuddly Tyrannosaurus rex Dinosaur Backpack

Proved very popular with young dinosaur fans on test. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The T. rex measures a fraction over sixty-three centimetres in length. The colourful backpack featuring the “Tyrant Lizard King” was described as being “cute” and it represented a “happy dinosaur” according to one young reviewer.

Everything Dinosaur’s range of soft toys, including dinosaur plush: Soft Toy Dinosaurs.

We had some fun photographing these backpacks, they are so soft and cuddly that our photographer was reluctant to let them go but we managed to get some pictures in the end. Even Tyrannosaurus rex refused to co-operate at one point. We wanted to take a picture so that we could show the sturdy adjustable straps on the back, we succeeded, but it looks like our T. rex got camera shy in the photograph.

Sturdy Straps on these Dinosaur Themed Backpacks

Robust and sturdy straps on the dinosaur themed backpack. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Sales of these two products help to support the Natural History Museum – London.

1 06, 2014

A Review of Everything Dinosaur’s Social Media Performance

By Mike|2023-03-13T12:03:08+00:00June 1st, 2014|Dinosaur Fans, Everything Dinosaur News and Updates, Main Page, Press Releases|0 Comments

An Update on Everything Dinosaur’s Social Media Activities

The first five months of 2014 have whizzed by and Everything Dinosaur team members have been as busy as ever working with schools and museums. The company’s new school website is progressing well and it should go live shortly, there are lots of new prehistoric animal models coming in the near future and the staff have been kept very busy packing and despatching orders to customers all over the world.

Social Media Activities

However, we remain committed to keeping up a dialogue with all our chums on various social media, so with five months gone, we thought it would be a good idea to reflect on our social media targets that were set at the turn of the year, time to see how we are progressing.

As part of our New Year predictions, team members outlined the plans and targets for Everything Dinosaur’s social media activities over the next twelve months or so, these included the following:

Blog – to post up at least 365 articles in 2014.

So far we have posted up an article each day for the whole of the first part of 2014. This means that an additional 151 articles have been added to the Everything Dinosaur blog. The Everything Dinosaur web log now has a total of 2,641 published articles, making it one of the largest blogs of this type around.

Ezine – to have 685 articles posted up on this platform by the year end.

Not too bad progress on this one. To date 575 articles have been published on Ezine. Each article is different, carefully researched and submitted in its own right. We have another six months or so to write 110 further articles. There is a bit of work required to hit our target but if we keep persevering this target is definitely achievable. In total we are currently at 83% of this rolling target.

YouTube – to have produced another 35 videos and seen viewing figures go over the 800,000 mark in total

So far, another fourteen videos have been added this year. Everything Dinosaur has nearly nine hundred subscribers and nearly 700,000 video reviews. With more videos planned in the next fortnight or so, we should achieve around thirty-five videos for the year, taking our video count to well over one hundred. Video reviews are planned for more Collecta models as well as for further additions to the Papo dinosaur model range. If our viewing figures continue the way they are we should get over 800,000 video reviews by the end of the year.

Pinterest – to have over 3,000 pins up on the Everything Dinosaur boards by December 31st 2014

Team members have made a special effort in May to pin up more of our dinosaur and prehistoric animal images from our archives. After a really big push in May, we have not got over 3,000 pins up, which is a terrific effort. This target has been achieved, perhaps 4,000 by the end of 2014?

Facebook – 1,200 likes and to continue to post up pictures, articles, snippets and so forth to encourage lively debate.

Lots of lively debate on Facebook that’s for sure. We really do appreciate all the contributions from everybody involved and we have clocked up 1,165 likes which is a terrific score. We are grateful for every “like” that we receive. Look out for more free downloads, competitions and updates on our Facebook page.

Click the Facebook Logo Below to Visit Everything Dinosaur on Facebook

Click the logo to visit our Facebook page and to give our page a “like”.

We are just thirty-five “likes” off our 2014 target, we will keep working hard, replying to every comment we receive and providing lots of information and advice. Hopefully, we will get to our target shortly.

Twitter – 2,000 tweets

We have posted something like 1,115 tweets and we have several hundred followers which has made us very “chuffed” to say the least. We should have 2,000 plus tweets posted by the end of the year.

Team members will continue to monitor our progress on social media, the new school web site has links to our twitter, pinterest and Facebook so this should give our work with schools greater exposure on social media. This new site should have a positive impact on Everything Dinosaur’s various social media campaigns. Let’s see how things look at the end of the year.

Take a look at the wide range of prehistoric animal and dinosaur themed gifts and toys available from Everything Dinosaur: Everything Dinosaur’s Website.