Fossilized Lemon Tracks: Cooking with the Kiddos

My boys love the How Do Dinosaurs? books by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. In fact, Jackson was obsessed with these books starting when he was about 18 months old, so he’s been reading them over and over again for almost 3 years!
I recently found this one, How Do Dinosaurs Eat Cookies? and like the others, they love it!

Inside the book was two recipes for cookies. Last night Jackson asked me if we could make these Fossilized Lemon Tracks. It was the perfect activity for this cloudy day!

 And the recipe was easy enough that the boys were able to do most of it themselves.
The ingredients are: 1 cup softened butter, 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar plus extra for dipping, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 tsp lemon extract, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 3/4 cups flour.
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and extracts and mix well, scraping sides if necessary. Sift flour, baking soda and salt and add to butter mixture. Mix until dough forms.

Roll the dough into small balls.

Roll the balls of dough in reserved sugar.

Place on a baking sheet and flatten slightly with the palm of your hand.

Use a chopstick or other kitchen utensil to create tracks in the dough.

I showed the boys like this, but let them do it however they liked.

Sprinkle the cookies with sugar and put in a 375 degree oven for 9-12 minutes.

Allow to cool for 2 minutes before removing them from the pan.
Did they turn out to look like dino tracks? Not quite. There were a few that looked like footprints. Most of them looked like scallop shells!

But the boys didn’t care!

They loved them!

Fossilized Lemon Tracks (modified from How Do Dinosaurs Eat Cookies?)

1 cup softened butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar plus extra for dipping
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 3/4 cups flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and extracts and mix well, scraping sides if necessary.
Sift dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Gradually add to sugar mixture and blend until dough forms.
Roll dough into small teaspoon-size balls. Roll in sugar and place on a baking sheet. Flatten with palm of your hand. Use a chopstick to mark tracks int he cookies and sprinkle with sugar. 
Bake in oven for 9-12 minutes or until done. Allow to cool 2 minutes before removing from tray.