Laurie Balthazar

• 1 cup butter
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar together until waxy.  Beat egg yolks until light brown.  Add flour a tablespoon at a time until soft dough is formed.  Put into cookie designer and press out shapes.  Decorate.  Bake in a hot oven until light brown.

As you’ve probably noticed, she hasn’t included an oven temperature or time.  Great Gram cooked these in a wood burning oven so I guess “hot” was as accurate as she could get.  Great Gram was born in Eagleville, PA in the late 1800’s!  She moved to Conshohocken when she married.  Her new home was next door to her mother-in-law.  This is the same house that my mother grew up in.

Her married name was Laura Linda Shade (guess who’s Laurie Lynn).  Apparently she only worked outside of the home one day in her life and wore pants one day in her life (the same day).  She passed away when I was about 14 or 15.  She was 98 years old.  Perhaps I should repeat that: she was 98 years old!

From what my mother told me, Great Gram was the designated cookie baker at home until the job got passed on to her daughter, Doris (my grandmother).  Eventually her daughter, Beverly (my mom) was the  official cookie baker until she left home.  I’ll be baking these cookies this year.  I’ll probably bake them every year from now on.