Summer may be in full swing here in Australia, but if this is the first December, January, February etc.  you’ve spent living on the Southern hemisphere it’s hard to completely forget the little winter notions these months bare. And one of those traditions are definitely these almond/vanilla crescent cookies. Covered in the little bits of icing sugar, so similar to freshly fallen powder painting the hills, trees and grass white they are simply perfect to lighten up the cold winter days. We don’t have this problem with all the sun and heat here in Sydney, but there are some days, when you just need a little piece of home. And they definitely are a delicious piece of home.

INGREDIENTS:

• 150 g butter
• 150 g icing sugar
• seeds of 1 vanilla bean
• 200 g flour
• 120 g almond meal

• 200 g icing sugar (to roll the cookies in)

METHOD:

1. I am currently living with very limited kitchen utensils which means the horror of all horrors – no self-standing mixer. So for these cookies I just put sugar and butter in a large bowl, mixed it a bit with a fork first and later on added flour and almonds. At this point I started mixing the pastry the old-school way using just my hands and well, it is a bit harder than putting it all into a mixer, but it does have some extra charm, as I’ve done the same so many times before when I was little and baking cookies with my mom or grandma. Plus the heat your hands produce does a bit of magic as well. Give it a go or in your mixer, they’ll be super nice anyway.
2. Once you have a nice loaf of pastry, simply divide it into 8 parts and roll each part into a nice long “snake”. Cut it in 5 cm little “snakes”, roll between your palms and shape into a crescent. Press the edges gently into nice rounded points when putting them on a non-sticking paper.
3. Bake at 180° for 12-15 minutes until light golden.
4. Cool them well and give them a nice bath of icing sugar – just fill a bowl with the sugar, and cover each cookie well with it. Enjoy!