Berliner Kranser

We all loved these; they were among the bounty of cookies Elsie, Nan and Mom baked in the years before Nan moved to California and Mom went to work at Lignell’s and didn’t have time for Christmas cookies. I remember helping Elsie stock her multi-level cookie plate. She’d send me to the stacks of cookie tins in the back hall of her kitchen, where the cold air helped keep the cookies fresh for weeks.

1/2 pound butter

3/4 cup powdered sugar

2 raw egg yolks (save the whites, beat till frothy)

2 hard boiled egg yolks chopped fine

3 cups flour Coarse sugar (also called pearl sugar)

Cream butter and powder sugar together. Crumble in cooked yolks. Beat in raw yolks, add flour. Mix till it all comes together into a workable dough. Roll a small piece of dough into a rope, using your fingertips on a piece of wax paper. Twist rope into a small wreath shape, crossing the ends over each other. (Call Leslee, Nora or Emma and ask them what this means.) Dip the wreaths into frothy, beaten egg white, then into coarse sugar. Bake cookies at 350 for about 10 minutes. Take out before they get brown. These should be fairly light in color.