Vanillekipferl
Small crescent biscuits of butter, ground almonds and flour rolled in vanilla sugar, chilled for 1 hour and baked for 12 minutes.
Photograph credit: Vanillekipferl WMAT2017 02 (image of Vanillekipferl on Wikidata Q376845) by Weihnachtskekserl · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Storing and Planning Ahead
Keeps for 4 weeks in a tin.
How to Make Vanillekipferl
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Mix the flour, almonds, 80 g icing sugar and salt. Rub in the butter, add the yolk and vanilla and bring together into a dough. Chill for 1 hour.
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Heat the oven to 170°C / 340°F and line two trays. Roll pieces of dough into thin sausages and cut into 3 cm lengths. Bend into crescents.
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Bake for 12 minutes until pale with golden bases. Leave on the tray for 5 minutes.
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Roll in the vanilla sugar while warm and again when cold.
A Few Pointers
- Chill the dough until firm.
- Handle the crescents gently when warm.
- Roll in sugar twice.
Why the Method Is What It Is
Keep the dough cold and handle it gently. That one instruction is the whole recipe for vanillekipferl, the small, crumbly vanilla crescents of Germany and Austria that melt on the tongue and are among the most popular of the Christmas biscuits.
The dough has almost no liquid: flour, ground almonds or hazelnuts, butter, sugar and an egg yolk. It breaks if it is overworked and spreads if it is warm. Chill it for 1 hour before shaping, then roll it into thin sausages, cut them into 3 cm pieces and bend them into crescents with the ends tapered. Place them on a lined tray, a little apart.
Bake at 170°C / 340°F for 12 minutes, until they are pale and just coloured at the base. They are very fragile when hot, so leave them on the tray for 5 minutes. Roll them in vanilla sugar while still warm, so the sugar sticks, and again when cold. They keep for weeks in a tin.
Good Alongside
Coffee · Mulled wine · Tea
Questions About Vanillekipferl
How long does Vanillekipferl take to make?
30 minutes of preparation and 12 minutes of cooking, plus 1 hour of Chilling, so allow 1 hour 42 minutes from start to finish. The recipe serves 40.
What's in a Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. The calories include 1 g of alcohol a serving, which is not part of the protein, carbohydrate or fat. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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