My friend Lecy, who writes at A Simpler Grace, rallied a group of bloggers to share their favorite holiday cookie recipe this season. I love baking for the holidays and Christmas cookies are a must, if you ask me.
Today I am sharing a recipe for some traditional Christmas cookies you’ll find in Germany. I believe that the recipe is a family recipe that I got from my mom, so I would like to give her credit for this (although this recipe is pretty simple and you might find similar recipes online, I don’t know).
I had a hard time deciding if I was going to share this recipe or another traditional German recipe for spritz cookies, which really are a staple around Christmas in our family (and my Dad is the head-baker and expert on the cookie dough!), but since I don’t have the equipment to make spritz cookies here, I opted to share the recipe for the vanilla almond crescent cookies.
Anyway, they’re relatively easy to make and one of my favorite kind of cookie for the holiday season. They’re on the crunchier/drier side, so if that is your thing, you should definitely give them a try!
- 100 g (3.5 oz) ground almonds
- 280 g (9.8 oz) pastry flour
- 70 g (2.5 oz) sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 200g (7 oz) butter
- 2 egg yolks
- 40 g (1.4 oz) vanilla sugar
- ½ tbsp powdered sugar
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the salt and the flour. Cut in the cold butter and mix with your hands.
- Add the sugar, the eggs, the vanilla sugar, and the ground almonds to the flour mixture. Place the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into several parts. Make rolls that are approximately 1 inch thick. Cut the rolls in 1 inch long pieces, bend the pieces into the shape of a crescent.
- Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10-15 minutes. When done, remove the ‘Kipferl’ carefully from the tray.
- While still warm, dust the kipferl with powdered sugar and let cool down.
What are your favorite holiday cookies?
Make sure you check out all the awesome recipes that were shared in this swap! I can’t wait to make some of them myself.
Snowballs from Samantha at Carter’s Cozy Nest
Paleo Chocolate Chip cookies from Mia at Mia Sutton Blog
Snickerdoodles from Lisa at Retro Housewife Goes Green
German Chocolate Cake Cookies from Abby at Winstead Wandering
Sugar Cookies from Lindsay at Pursuit of Pink
Vanillekipferl (Vanilla Almond Crescent Cookies) from Sandra at The In Between Is Mine
Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies from Ashley at Happy. Pretty. Sweet.
Cloud Snickerdoodles from Savannah at The Savvy Plate
Peppermint Whoopie Pies from Abi at Abi Tomberlin Blog
Peanut Butter Dreams Dog Treats from Beth at Daily Dog Tag
Grandma Hermits by Lecy at A Simpler Grace
San, these sound so good! I love vanilla and almond together and can’t wait to try these! Thanks for joining in the 2017 Holiday Cookie Swap! <3
Thanks for hosting the swap, Lecy. Such great recipes! And yes, vanilla + almond = my favorite :)
Oh yummy! I’ve never heard of these. My family LOVES spritz cookies though. We used to make them every year but we haven’t in a couple years. This year we plan on doing it though!
-Lauren
Yay, so glad you’re making spritz cookies this year. They’re my other favorites.
My mom used to make spritz cookies when we were little but doesn’t anymore as she has cut back on her holiday baking. But I remember loving them!
Now that I am GF, I don’t eat many Christmas cookies as it’s tough to make some of them GF – especially ones that require you to roll them out, like cut out sugar cookies or gingerbread cookies. Gingerbread are probably my favorite, though, so I miss having those! I do make some GF sugar cookies from my America’s test kitchen GF cookbook but the dough is kind of fragile so you can’t roll it out. So I just make round cookies. I have a cookie decorating party for my friends and their kids every December and the kids still enjoy decorating them. Everyone said the sugar cookies were delicious, too! I also love kiss cookies but I haven’t tried to make those GF. I might try to find a recipe this year. Phil and I bake something together when we celebrate Christmas so that might be a good cookie to attempt this year! Then we share whatever we baked with the family we celebrate Christmas with.
Ah, of course your mom would know – and bake – spritz cookies. Did she use a cookie press? My dad makes the dough extra hard (and chilled in the fridge) to get the right consistency.
Oh these sound amazing, I wish I could have almonds. I’ll have to pass them on to friends that can.
Oh bummer, almonds are so good.
Yumm! I will try them.
My favorite are “Engelsaugen”. I guess you call them Thumb Print Cookies here.
If you want I can look up that recipe and share it.
I’d love the recipe… I’ve never made Engelsaugen myself.
Anything with almond, sign me up! I love the taste of that. Yummy!!!!
Exactly!
These look delicious! I was just telling my dad the other day how much I loved the spritz cookies my grandma used to make!
Oh, that’s so cool that your grandma made spritz cookies! They’re so good.
My husband and I lived in Germany for a while + he spent several years over there as a kid, so he is ALL about the German Christmas cookies! They look delicious!!
Oh that is so great. How did you like Germany?
I love Vanillekipferl but only when they already get a bit soggy again. And I hate backing them because it takes forever (in my opinion) to form them.
And I think my mom had one or two years where we tried the spitz cookies because she thought it would be faster to “produce” but in the end we never really got the hang of it. So I have no affinity to them. Funny how different that is.
I am wondering how many recipes I am baking this year.
Happy December,
Tobia
Oh, spritz cookies can be made in so many different ways… did you use a cookie press?
I went to Germany once as a child during Christmas, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was magical. And there were so many delicious kinds of cookies and amazing folk art decorations. I hope that hasn’t changed over the years. These cookies look great!
It hasn’t! We’re still the masters of Christmas markets and decorations in Germany :)
I was just getting ready to make some vanilla kipferl. Thanks for the timely recipe :)
You’re welcome :)
OMG, I’ve had these before! I’ll be honest though… I always thought they were Italian (why did I think that?!). They are delicious and light and I could eat a bag in a sitting :) Thanks so much for sharing the recipe. I love this “cookies from around the world” segment on your blogs… it’s so interesting to see what people bake for the holidays in different corners of the world :)
It’s possible that there is an Italian version of this cookie. They often also say that they’re Austrian… I guess, we just call it a European Christmas cookie LOL
These look great. And you know sometimes a crunchy drier cookie is called for! Gonna put this on the must try list :-)
I am all about the crunchy, dry cookies :)
Family recipes are the best! Those cookies look so good :)
I agree, family recipes are the best! You should give these a try.
Question: Can I use “normal” flour for these or must it be pastry flour?
You can, but pastry flour has a lower protein content and will make the cookies a little ‘fluffier’. You can substitute two tbsp of cornstarch for all purpose flour to mimmick the pastry flour for backed goods.