Ruth's Vanilla Crescents, getting dredged in vanilla confectioners' sugar

Lebkuchen and Stollen feature complex flavors from a variety of spices and a range of ingredients.  For Viennese Vanilla Crescents, however, it is all about the power and purity of vanilla. These cookies also have a melt in your mouth texture derived from ground blanched almonds and top quality European style butter.  There are only six ingredients for Vanilla Crescents, so be sure to use the very best quality vanilla bean, butter and almonds.

Vanilla Crescents have been part of my mother’s holiday baking for decades.  Her recipe is based on an old House & Garden recipe that she can no longer find.  She simplified and re-typed the recipe for use with a food processor instead of a standing mixer. Ruth uses Plugra European Style butter, when she can find it.  She buys vanilla bean from the Penzey’s Spices catalog, or at the new Penzey’s store in Summit NJ.

My brother’s family makes such a fuss over my mother’s Vanilla Crescents that they get a whole tin of them, loaded up with a white-out of vanilla sugar.  In my brother Paul’s words: “The main attribute of the Vanilla Crescent is its simplicity, and great texture. It is almost a palate cleanser, with its not too sweet, but pure combination of vanilla cookie and finely ground almonds, all synthesized into a unique holiday treat.”  My lovely niece Julia loves the cookies too, and admits she has a little holiday habit of pinching off the extra vanilla sugar from the cookie platter — when no one is looking, that is.

Once these cookies are baked and cooled, store them in a tin covered with left over vanilla sugar and the scraped out vanilla beans.  This keeps the full-on vanilla-ness going until the cookies are consumed.

Recipe for Viennese Vanilla Crescents

Adapted from a House & Garden recipe, date unknown
Makes about 60 cookies
Use top quality unsalted European style butter (Plugra, or Irish butter, if you can find it) and vanilla bean (Penzey’s is among the best) to enhance the flavor.

Ingredients:

8 oz. sliced blanched almonds
¼ cup sugar (rounded)
2 cups flour
14 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces for processing
2 to 3 vanilla beans
1½ to 2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Preparation:

Using a food processor with metal blade, grind almonds and sugar until fine; do not over-process to a paste. Add flour, then butter, and pulse until the mixture comes together.  Transfer dough to a board or wax paper and form with your hands into a ball or disk. Wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour (or overnight if necessary).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Split vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape out the black seeds.  Mix the seeds with the confectioners’ sugar (use a shallow bowl or pie plate because the baked cookies will be dredged in the vanilla sugar) and set aside.

Using the chilled dough, form the cookies: Roll about one teaspoon of dough between the palms of your hands, tapering both ends, and shape into crescents.

Roll the dough between your palms ....

... and pinch the ends to form crescents

Place the crescents on a baking pan, leaving small spaces between them.  Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until lightly colored.

The cookies are baked for about 15 to 20 minutes until lightly colored

When cookies are slightly cooled but still warm, place them in the vanilla sugar, coating them completely, being careful not to break off the ends.  Transfer the cookies to wax paper on a rack or on the counter (so the sugar does not fall off) to cool completely.  Store crescents in an airtight container or cookie tin.  Sprinkle the excess vanilla sugar over the cookies, adding the scraped beans, to help preserve the vanilla flavor of the cookies while being stored.  Shake off excess sugar before serving.

Carefully coat the slightly cooled cookies in vanilla sugar; save the vanilla sugar for storage with the cookies to enhance flavor