This recipe for Vanille-Kipferl – or “vanilla crescent” – is “The Ultimate”, the definitive one. How I got there is a beautiful story and I’ll tell you: Christmas, my brother arrives from Vienna like every year and immediately tells me “I have to let you taste some cookies that one of my students, Patrick, made, they are truly exceptional”. One morning, going out together for the Christmas round, he brings me one, just one, kept aside in a little box. I taste it and… it melts in my mouth, a delicious flavor and a magnificent consistency: I present to you “the ultimate Vanille-Kipferl”. Thank you Patrick!
The story could actually go on because after tasting it I pestered my brother to get the exact recipe (having a brother who is a University Professor could have been helpful in finding it, right?), hoping that there were no unavailable ingredients. And the recipe arrived, precise precise.
Ingredients for 80-100 biscuits
- 300 g 00 flour (the finest I found)
- 100 g chopped walnuts
- 70 g icing sugar
- 1 packet vanilla granulated sugar (if you can’t find it, mix 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar with two sachets of vanilla
or with the scrapings of a vanilla pod) - 250 g butter
Sugar coating
- 150g of icing sugar + 2 packets of vanilla granulated sugar (if you can’t find it, mix 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar with two sachets of vanilla or with the scrapings of a vanilla pod)
or directly use a total of 200g of vanilla icing sugar
If you have a stand mixer, put all the ingredients in the mixer and knead with the leaf hook until the dough comes away from the sides. If you knead by hand, mix the flour, sugars and nuts and knead the butter, crumbling it with your hands and work it quickly until you obtain a soft and elastic dough. Make a ball of the dough, wrap it in cling film and leave it to rest for at least 3 hours in the fridge (it must be cold otherwise it becomes difficult to form the croissants).
Take the dough out of the fridge and, on a floured surface, work it in small portions, forming with your hands a thin cylinder (diameter about 0.5 cm) that you will cut at intervals of about 7 cm.
Arrange the small cylinders obtained on a baking tray lined with baking paper, folding them slightly into a crescent or croissant shape.
Bake at 150-170°C and cook for 12-15 minutes until cooked through, without browning at the edges. Remove from the oven, let cool for 2-3 minutes and, while still warm (be careful, they are crumbly and tend to break), roll them gently in the vanilla icing sugar mixture. Let cool completely and store in a tin for 7-10 days.
Now take one, close your eyes, and taste: isn’t it wonderful? It feels like silk and tastes delicious…
Thanks to Patrick and his grand-mother – whose recipe is – for THE ULTIMATE VANILLE-KIPFERL.
