Happy Day After Christmas!

     At the beginning of the Holiday season, I decided that I was going to bake up a storm--oreo balls, haystacks, ginger bread cookies, and, most exciting of all, my grandmother's French crackers. French Crackers are very similar to sugar cookies except better. These were my mother's favorite cookies as a child. She would sneak down to the basement to steal a cookie, or two, or three. I do not remember her every baking them for me, but I found them while I was searching for the ginger bread recipe.
     When I made them at the start of Christmas week, Mom nearly cried at her first bite. She was immediately taken back to her childhood in her mother's kitchen. They were gone within the next three days. Glad that I could provide such a memory for my mom, I decided to make them again, this time to send to my grandma and great aunt, with the hope of taking them back to their younger years. Naturally, mom stole one...or two or three cookies before I could pack them away.

Now, I'd like to share this recipe with you to share with your family! Happy Holidays and enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 4 egg yolks
• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 cup of crisco (I use the stick)
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in hot water
• 2 cups of flour
• Cinnamon sugar or colored sugar

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Mix the sugar and crisco together with your hands.
3. Mix in the egg yolks--I use a mixer for this step. 
4. Hand mix in the flour and baking soda solution.
5. **The dough might seem crumbly, but when you start packing it into a ball, it packs together well. 
6. Flour your counter, rolling pin, and cookie cutters. 
7. Split the dough in half (I find that you lose less batter to over-flouring if you split it), and pack one half into a ball.
8. Roll it out and cut your dough.
9. Cover the cookies with your choice (color or cinnamon) and bake for five minutes. Don't let it go past the five minutes or they will burn. 
10. Let cool and enjoy!!