These Viennese crescent cookies are traditional Christmas cookies in Austria. As Gourmet magazine wrote, “From Vienna, city of music, laughter, and good food comes a cookie so delicate, so fragile, so meltingly good that it takes its place with the most famous of Vienna’s justly famous pastries.”
We’re incredibly taken by these cookies, borrowed from that same issue of Gourmet, and their soulful crunch, delicate texture, and a dusting of confectioners’ sugar that’s as light as the first snowfall. We’re also more than a little curious as to their proper name. Turns out it’s Vanillekipferl, although don’t ask us how to pronounce it. Or how to say it three times fast. Especially not when we’re distracted with our mouths full of these little lovelies.–Renee Schettler
Viennese Crescent Cookies FAQs
Alice Medrich shared this nifty trick with Julia Child years ago and it’s a keeper. You blanch, or quickly dunk in boiling water, the hazelnuts. But you want to add some baking soda to the water. Use 2 cups boiling water and 3 tablespoons baking soda. Toss in the hazelnuts and boil for 3 minutes. The water may turn dark. Don’t freak out. Pour the hazelnuts and their boiling water into a colander placed in the sink and rinse under cool running water. The skins should slip right off.
If your recipe calls for toasted hazelnuts and you don’t mind a few specks of skin still stuck to the nuts, simply dump the hazelnuts on a rimmed baking sheet and toast in a 350°F (180°C) oven for about 10 minutes until the hazelnuts are pale golden and barely fragrant. Watch them closely as they can quickly go from not quite done to scorched and bitter in a matter of seconds. Immediately dump the hazelnuts onto a clean kitchen towel, fold the ends over the hazelnuts, and let them rest for about 10 minutes. Then use your hands to vigorously rub the nuts, still inside the towel, against one another. This will take off most, but not all, of the skins.
Viennese Crescent Cookies
Ingredients
For the vanilla confectioners’ sugar (for coating)
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise and chopped
For the crescents
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (5 oz) hazelnuts, skinned*, (see "Viennese Crescent Cookies FAQs" above)
- 3 sticks (12 oz) cold unsalted butter, cut into 24 pieces
Instructions
Make the vanilla confectioners’ sugar
- In an airtight container, combine the confectioners' sugar and vanilla bean and let stand, covered, for at least 24 hours. Sift before using. (The vanilla sugar will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to several months.)
Make and bake the Viennese vanilla crescent cookies
- In a food processor or high-powered blender, pulse together the flour, 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar, salt, and hazelnuts until the nuts are finely ground, about 30 seconds. Add the butter and pulse just until a dough forms. If the dough is crumbly, you may need to pulse it a little longer until it forms a dough. Turn the dough onto your work surface and gently form it into a ball and then flatten it into a disk. Wrap it in plastic wrap or wax paper and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Adjust the oven rack to the center of the oven.
- Roll level tablespoons of dough (about 18 grams) into balls. Then roll each ball on a smooth surface into a 3-inch log with slightly tapered ends. Bend each log to form crescents and arrange them about 1 inch apart on baking sheets.
☞ TESTER TIP: If you tend to have hot hands, try occasionally cupping a few ice cubes in your palm while working with the dough. It actually helps keep the butter from starting to soften, which in turn helps your cookies retain their shape.
- Bake the cookies until the edges are pale golden, 12 to 15 minutes.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool slightly, about 2 minutes.
Coat the Viennese crescent cookies
- Sift enough vanilla confectioners' sugar onto a rimmed baking sheet to cover the bottom.
- Carefully transfer the slightly cooled baked crescent cookies to the sugared baking sheet and sprinkle with enough sugar to coat completely. Move the crescents to wire racks to cool completely. (The cookies keep, layered between sheets of wax or parchment paper, in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.)
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Recipe Testers’ Reviews
These are very delicate cookies that are easy to make. They’re buttery, light, and truly “melt in your mouth.” I’ve made these before using other recipes but the vanilla sugar adds a flavor that cookies made from other recipes don’t have. They’re similar but not nearly this good.
These little Viennese vanilla crescents are the real thing. When I served them to my German friend, she said, “These bring me back to my childhood. These are just what my mother made. And they were served all over Germany and Austria and always made with hazelnuts.”
This cookie is lovely. It has the texture of a really light shortbread. It’s incredibly crumbly and buttery. Admittedly, neither my husband nor I like hazelnuts. And this is a cookie that showcases hazelnuts beautifully. Even with our not enjoying hazelnuts, we really enjoyed these cookies. I brought them to some friends who LOVE hazelnuts, and they said that it was a beautiful butter cookie and the hazelnuts were more secondary. But they loved these cookies all the same.
So light and toothsome and refreshingly blended with vanilla and nutty flavors. These cookies were delightful and quick to eat but a bit time-consuming to prepare. My son helped me coat the warm cookies in vanilla sugar. They were so good right then and then again in the morning with coffee and then again for an afternoon coffee!
These are a delicious, nutty cookie that isn’t too sweet, similar to walnut crescent cookies. The dough comes together quite quickly. Most of the time will be spent rolling out the dough to make the crescents.
The flavor of these cookies is great. Rolling the crescents is not that easy but they look really pretty. These made a wonderful gift. Also, if you don’t want to roll the crescents, you can press them down to between 1/4- to 1/2-inch thickness and bake them as circles. These also turned out well.
These cookies are really delicious. They are delicate, melt-in-your-mouth, not too sweet, and the nuts add a slight texture that is very pleasing. I really like the flavor and texture of these.
I have been making Vanillekipferl with my grandmother and mother since I was a little kid in Germany. There were no food processors to grind the nuts. I still use my nut grinder instead of pulsing the nuts in a food processor. I have a manual one and an electric one. I find the consistency of the ground nuts to be more controllable. I know it takes a little longer, but it’s worth it.
Most of my old german recipes use Almonds instead of Hazelnuts. The oldest Viennese book is from 1930. Dr. Oetger’s “German Home Baking” also uses Almonds.
That being said, I have actually used walnuts as well and they just melt in your mouth. My sister has used a mixture of Almonds and Hazelnuts.
Loved the tip about how to skin the hazelnuts with boiling water.
Thank you for taking the time to comment, Inge. Baking is best when it is filled with wonderful memories.
I am confused as to how much butter I use…is it 12 oz total or three 12 oz sticks of butter? Help!
Linda, it’s 3 sticks, which is 12 ounces. I hope that helps!