With their delicate almond taste, crumbly shortbread texture, and candy powdered sugar coating, almond crescent cookies are a conventional favourite across the holidays, however can (and will!) be loved yr spherical. This can be a 1-bowl cookie dough, and the chilliness time is comparatively fast!
If these snowy moon-shaped cookies look acquainted to you, it’s as a result of they’re such a traditional fashion of cookie, you haven’t any doubt encountered them on multiple event!
Buttery, nutty, and coated in confectioners’ sugar, almond crescent cookies are a staple in Italian baking. Made with a couple of easy components, they’re elegant of their simplicity. Whereas there are numerous methods to make them, this recipe displays how I examined and ready them. It will not be essentially the most conventional method, however they verify all of the crescent cookie bins!
And all of us love them.
Almond Crescent Cookies Recipe Snapshot
- Texture: The feel is much like snowball cookies, which additionally don’t embody any egg or leavening brokers. If you chunk into certainly one of these cookies, the powdery candy coating melts in your mouth and offers approach to the crumbly, sandy cookie inside.
- Taste: We’re utilizing vanilla and almond extracts to taste these buttery cookies.
- Ease: This can be a easy, 1-bowl recipe that comes collectively simply with an electrical mixer. Shaping the cookies into crescents is the one barely tough step.
- Time: The formed cookie dough crescents want to relax for half-hour earlier than baking (that’s comparatively fast for cookies!), and they should cool fully earlier than you’ll be able to coat them within the powdered sugar.
Good with a steamy mug of espresso, tea, or scorching chocolate, these are a traditional “tea cookie.”
Key Elements You Want & Why:
- Butter: Creamed butter types the bottom of those shortbread-style cookies.
- Sugar: Granulated sugar sweetens these cookies. I discover the cookies too dry when utilizing confectioners’ sugar within the dough; with a view to maintain the cookies from over-spreading, you want sufficient flour. Confectioners’ sugar within the dough threw off the dry-to-wet-ingredients ratio.
- Vanilla & Almond Extracts: For taste, particularly if utilizing home made vanilla extract! Don’t skip the almond extract, it’s a flavorful should for these almond crescent cookies, even in case you resolve to make them with one other kind of nut.
- Flour: This offers the construction of the cookie.
- Cornstarch: A contact of cornstarch ensures these crumbly cookies don’t develop into too onerous. It’s not a typical ingredient in conventional crescent cookies, however we discovered it dramatically improves the cookies’ texture.
- Floor Almonds: Begin with uncooked sliced almonds and grind them in a meals processor. The bottom almonds might be finely chopped, however nonetheless gritty.
- Salt: To stability out the candy.
- Confectioners’ Sugar: Their snowy exterior comes from rolling them in powdered sugar after they cool. The cookies themselves should not overly candy, so it provides a pleasant contact of sweetness as nicely.
That is an egg-free baking recipe.
Can I Use Almond Flour?
I strongly advocate grinding up almonds your self, so that you get a rough and gritty texture. (See photograph under.) This fashion you’ll actually have the ability to style the almond. In a pinch, you need to use store-bought coarse almond meal, however don’t use wonderful almond flour. Your cookie dough received’t come collectively very nicely and the cookies, following the recipe under, will style dry.
When you don’t have a meals processor, chop sliced almonds as finely as attainable with a pointy knife.
Anticipate a Crumbly Dough
The cookie dough comes collectively in simply 1 bowl. Will probably be tremendous thick, to the purpose the place you don’t suppose it can come collectively! Flip your mixer up and watch the buttery goodness type earlier than your eyes.
The dough will come collectively, I promise:
Use a Tablespoon measuring spoon to portion out the cookie dough, then use your fingers to form the cookies into crescent shapes. They don’t must be good (and so they received’t be!), so simply do your finest right here.
Chill the formed crescent cookies within the fridge for not less than half-hour and as much as 1 day, to assist set their form, after which bake.
Let the cookies cool fully, then roll every crescent cookie generously in confectioners’ sugar. When you roll them whereas they’re nonetheless heat, the powdered sugar will simply soften into the cookies, so be certain they’re fully cool earlier than coating them.
3 Success Ideas
- Use correct room-temperature butter. Like when making Christmas sugar cookies or butter cookies, in case your butter is just too tender while you begin, it received’t type a sturdy base on your cookie dough. The cookies will over-spread and style greasy & dense.
- Cool fully earlier than coating. When you roll them within the powdered sugar whereas they’re nonetheless heat, the sugar will soften into the cookies, and also you’ll want a 2nd coating after the cookies cool. The cookies are buttery sufficient that the sugar will nonetheless stick, even after cooling.
- And once more, don’t use almond flour. Some recipes for almond crescent cookies use almond flour, however the recipe under is finest with coarsely floor almonds.
Almond Crescent Cookie Variations
Easy and traditional, however if you wish to mess around with this recipe, listed here are a couple of concepts you can strive:
- Citrus Zest: Add a pair Tablespoons (sure, Tablespoons!) of recent lemon or orange zest to the dough for a vivid, citrusy twist.
- Use a Completely different Nut: As an alternative of almonds, strive floor pecans, pistachios, hazelnuts, or walnuts. You may additionally take the additional step to toast the nuts (simply scatter them on a baking sheet and pop them in a 300°F (149°C) oven for about 8 minutes), earlier than you grind them, for that added toasty taste. Don’t skip the almond extract, although—you continue to want that for taste, even if you’re utilizing a distinct kind of nut within the dough.
- Chocolate: Drizzle the cooled cookies with melted chocolate, or dip one finish of the crescent in melted chocolate and sprinkle some sliced almonds on prime earlier than the chocolate units. Yum!
Sally’s Cookie Palooza
This recipe is a part of my annual cookie countdown known as Sally’s Cookie Palooza. It’s the largest, most scrumptious occasion of the yr! Browse dozens of cookie recipes over on the Sally’s Cookie Palooza web page together with:
Almond Crescent Cookies
Prep Time: 1 hour (consists of chilling)
Prepare dinner Time: 14 minutes
Complete Time: 2 hours, quarter-hour
Yield: 36 cookies
Class: Cookies
Methodology: Baking
Delicacies: Italian
Description
With their delicate almond taste, crumbly shortbread texture, and candy powdered sugar coating, almond crescent cookies are a conventional favourite across the holidays, however can (and will!) be loved yr spherical. These are a beautiful make-ahead choice, because the formed cookie dough may be refrigerated for as much as 1 day.
Directions
- Line a big baking sheet or a pair massive plates (no matter your fridge has room for) with parchment paper. Put aside.
- In a big bowl utilizing a handheld or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar collectively on excessive pace till fully clean and creamy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the edges and backside of the bowl as wanted. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and beat on medium-high pace till mixed. Add the flour, cornstarch, almonds, and salt. Beat on low pace till largely mixed, then flip the mixer as much as medium-high pace and beat till the dough totally comes collectively. The dough might be tremendous thick, to the purpose the place you don’t suppose it can mix. Simply maintain mixing till it clumps collectively. If completely wanted, beat in a pair drops of water to get it to come back collectively.
- Scoop 1 Tablespoon (20g) of cookie dough and form right into a crescent moon. Place on the lined baking sheet/plate, and repeat with remaining cookie dough. (The formed cookies may be shut collectively on this step, as you’ll separate them on lined baking sheets to bake.) Refrigerate the formed cookies for not less than half-hour and as much as 1 day. If refrigerating for longer than a few hours, cowl the dough.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line massive baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Prepare the chilled cookies 2 inches aside on the ready baking sheets.
- Bake the cookies till golden brown on the underside edges and simply barely browned on prime, 14–16 minutes. Enable the cookies to chill for five minutes on the baking sheet, then switch them to a cooling rack to chill fully.
- Coating: Gently roll every crescent cookie within the confectioners’ sugar to coat fully.
- Cookies keep recent lined at room temperature for as much as 1 week.
Notes
- Make Forward & Freezing Directions: Baked and coated cookies freeze nicely as much as 3 months. Thaw within the fridge or at room temperature. Unbaked, formed cookie dough crescents freeze nicely for as much as 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough crescents for an additional minute, no have to thaw. See this put up on easy methods to freeze cookie dough for extra info and a video tutorial.
- Particular Instruments (affiliate hyperlinks): Meals Processor | Electrical Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Glass Mixing Bowl | Cooling Rack or this Gold Cooling Rack
- Almond to Use: I exploit uncooked sliced almonds, often offered within the baking aisle with the opposite nuts. Don’t use salted almonds.
- To Toast the Almonds: Unfold uncooked sliced almonds in a single layer on a lined baking sheet. Bake for 8 minutes at 300°F (149°C). Allow them to cool earlier than chopping/grinding.
- Different Nuts: You may as well use finely chopped/floor pistachios, hazelnuts, pecans, or walnuts. If utilizing one other nut, I nonetheless advocate including almond extract. Be happy to cut back the quantity of almond extract all the way down to 1/2 teaspoon.
- Can I Use Almond Flour? I strongly advocate grinding up almonds your self, so that you get a rough and gritty texture. This fashion you’ll actually have the ability to style the almond. In a pinch, you need to use store-bought coarse almond meal, however don’t use wonderful almond flour. Your cookie dough received’t come collectively very nicely and the cookies, following the recipe in any other case, will style dry.
- If You Don’t Have a Meals Processor: When you don’t have a meals processor, chop sliced almonds as finely as attainable with a pointy knife.
