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 (and 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. Place the crescents on a baking pan, leaving small spaces between them. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or 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.
Ruth's Christmas Cookies 