When my parents moved to Germany from Russia, we started our tradition to bake cookies for christmas. This is the first recipe we tried, and we stuck with it for 30 years already. The cookies are delicious. Our kids love them. I baked them twice in the last 2 weeks, and there are none left. The next portion I have to hide, so that we have some left for christmas!
For the Vanillekipferl you need blanched ground almonds, icing sugar, flour, vanilla sugar unsalted cold butter and egg yolks.
Put all the ingredients in a Kitchen Aid or whatever you use, to make the dough. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least 30 min. That’s very important, or the vanillekipferl will lose their shape while being baked.
Take half of the dough from the fridge and make balls that are 10g each. Keep the other half in the fridge, till the first half is done.
Roll the balls with your hands to make an elongated strand. Then make a shape, like the picture above.
Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Put the kipferl on a lined baking tray and bake for approximately 12 minutes. They should be golden brown. Keep them on the baking tray for 5 minutes because they are very soft. Then put sugar and vanillasugar in a bowl, and dip the vanillekipferl one by one in the sugar. They still have to be warm, otherwise the sugar will not stick.
You can store them for a couple of weeks in a cookie jar and in a cold place. I store them in our garage.
Ingredients
- 300 g flour (2,1/2 cup)
- 125 g icing sugar (1cup)
- 1 pack of vanillasugar
- 3 egg yolk
- 125 g blanched ground almonds (1cup)
- 250 g unsalted butter, cold (1,1/8 cup)
- extra sugar and 1 pack of vanillasugar for dipping
Instructions
Put all the ingredients in a Kitchen Aid or whatever you use, to make the dough. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least 30 min. That’s very important, or the vanillekipferl will lose their shape while being baked.
Take half of the dough from the fridge and make balls that are 10g each. Keep the other half in the fridge, till the first half is done.
Roll the balls with your hands to make an elongated strand. Then make a moon-like shape.
Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Put the kipferl on a lined baking tray and bake for approximately 12 minutes. They should be golden brown. Keep them on the baking tray for 5 minutes because they are very soft. Then put sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl, and dip the vanillekipferl one by one in the sugar. They still have to be warm, otherwise the sugar will not stick.
Cooking with a grateful heart 