Title: Annie hall's butter cookies
 Categories: Cookies, Cookbook
      Yield: 96 Servings
 
      2 c  Butter, softened
  1 1/2 c  Sugar
      4    Egg yolks
      2 ts Vanilla
  4 1/2 c  Unbleached flour
    1/2 ts Salt
 
  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With an electric mixer (even the
  hand-held kind), cream together butter and sugar. Add egg yolks and
  vanilla and mix well. Sift flour and salt together and beat into
  butter mixture until well mixed. When ready to bake use an ungreased
  cookie sheet and place cookies 1 inch apart. Bake for about 10
  minutes, but do not brown them. Remove cookies from cookie sheet
  while still warm and cool on sheets of waxed paper. Decorate, if you
  like. Makes 6 to 8 dozen. Taste fabulous!
  
  Shapes:
  
  Candy Canes: Divide 3 cups of dough in half. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons red
  food coloring to one half. Using about a tablespoon of dough, roll a
  4 inch strip of each color (no fatter than a pencil). Place the two
  colored rolls side-by-side and press lightly together. Gently twist
  like a rope and place on ungreased cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Curve
  the top like a candy cane and bake about 10 minutes; do not brown.
  You can sprinkle with crushed peppermint candy.
  
  Rolled Cookies: Shape dough into rolls with width of a cookie. Wrap in
  waxed paper and chill. Before baking, roll in chocolate shots. Slice
  1/2 inch thick and bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for
  10 minutes; do no brown.
  
  Stars, Hearts, Circles and Jelly-Filled: Fill a pastry bag with
  unchilled dough and put through a 'star tip' (sizes 2 and 7 - 9).
  Squeeze onto cookie sheet into the shapes you like. For instance,
  make star, then fill baked cookie center with red jelly. Decorate
  these cookies with cinnamon hearts, mini chocolate morsels, color
  sugar, little silver balls, or frosting from a tube. Bake them, same
  as others. Do not brown.
  
  Cookie Cutter Cookies: Chill dough. Roll out onto lightly floured
  board to thickness of 1/2 inch. Cut with cookie cutters and bake as
  mentioned above. Decorate your own way.
  
  Plain Old Drop Cookies: Just drop unchilled dough by teaspoonful onto
  ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Don't brown.
  Remove from pans immediately.