Vanilla Crescent Cookies (Kue Putri Salju)

Following cat tongue biscuit post, this time I will share Vanilla Crescent cookies which was originated in Vienna Austria.  It is known as Vanillekipferl or almond crescents cookies  coated with vanilla sugar.  

In my country (Indonesia) we call it snow white cookies due to the icing sugar as its topping :). The Indonesian version of this cookies has powder milk as one of the ingredients.  But I will use cream cheese instead to make them creamier.

I was so lucky to find moon crescent cookie cutter in traditional market in Palembang (my hometown) for 10.000 IDR/pcs (less than 1 Euro).  If you can´t find one, just use any cookie cutter.

Vanillekipferl (vanilla crescent cookies)

Ingredients: 

Authentic version:

250 g all purpose flour

200 g butter 

80 g granulated sugar (ca. 8 tbsp)

2 egg yolks

100 g shelled and ground almonds (Substitute: Cashew)

1 pinch of salt  

1 tsp vanilla extract

Lumi's Version:
Optional: 30 gr cream cheese (ca. 2 tbsp), but you should reduce the amount of butter (use 175 gr butter)

For dusting & coating: 200 gr powdered sugar 

Methods:

1.  Mix butter and sugar until the mixture becomes fluffy and has pale color.

2.  Add egg yolks, vanilla extract (optional) and salt then mix well.

3.  At this point, you can add cream cheese (optional) in to the dough and mix until      

     combined.

4.  Before we adding ground almond and flour, we could change the mixer beaters into 

     the dough hooks.  If you want to use spatula or wooden spoon it is completely fine. 

5.  Add ground almond into the mixture and stir well

6.  Add half amount of flour into the dough and mix it, afterwards add the rest of the 

     flour then  stir until combined.

7.  Place the dough in the fridge for one hour to cool for the flavors to develop.  After 1 

     hour, take out the dough from refrigerator and halve the dough to make it easier

     to form.  Don´t forget to dust work board to make it easier to roll out the dough.

8.  Preheat the oven to 180°C and place the oven rack  in the middle of the oven (I use 

     rack 3 of 4 from bottom).

9.  Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 7-10 mm.

10.  Form the flattened dough with crescent-shaped dough-cutter (or any other shape). 

11.  Bake the cookies in a preheated oven for about 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges

       become golden brown.

12.  After taking out the cookies from the oven, dust them with powdered sugar while    

       they are still in the baking tray and hot/warm. Otherwise the powdered sugar won´t

       stick to the cookies. Don´t ignore the bottom part of the cookies. Cover the bottom 

       part of the cookie by swiping it over the excess powdered sugar.

13.  After the cookies  getting a bit cooler (so they are not breaking apart, if they are  

       touched), toss the cookie into a bowl of sifted powdered sugar to make sure all sides

      of the cookies are coated.

14.  Transfer the cookies to cooling racks to cool completely before storing them in  

       airtight container or cookies jar.

15.  While transferring the cookies into a cookies jar, you may dust some powdered sugar 

       on each layer of the cookies.

Let me know, if you guys use this recipe (whether the authentic version or my version) and share with me about your experience :)