These melt in your mouth festive crescent cookies make a perfect cookie for the holiday season. Slightly crunchy from the walnuts and just the right amount of sweetness. Sprinkle with a dusting of powdered sugar or deep them in dark chocolate with a few chopped walnuts…yum!!
Growing up Mom would insist that I make these cookies every Christmas and I was more than happy to do it. She loved the texture and flavour of these cookies, but what she loved more was the way they decorated the cookie platter we would include on our table when the extended family came home for Christmas.
These cookies are easy to make and only require time to roll out each of 48 or so cookies this recipe would make. They literally melt in your mouth, that’s how yummy they are. The rich buttery flavour with finely ground walnuts only needs little sugar to make them soooo good! The powdered sugar and chocolate dipping creates a festive and delicious cookie! So let’s start baking. 🙂
SUGGESTIONS AND TIPS
This recipe is simple and straight forward with a few ingredients. The flavour is rich from the added butter and only 1/3 cup of sugar that doesn’t make the cookie too sweet. The ground walnuts adds some texture, and I like to leave a few larger pieces of walnuts to give this cookies a little bit of crunch.
This cookie recipe is recommended to be refrigerated for a minimum of 1 hour or over night. Take the dough out about 10-15 minutes before you start working with the dough. This allows the dough to soften and it is easier to work with when shaping them into crescents.
INGREDIENTS
- butter – salt or unsalted butter can be used for this recipe
- sugar – my recipe calls for the raw fine sugar or regular sugar is an alternative
- water
- vanilla extract
- flour: I like to use organic flour
- walnuts – use fresh walnuts for this recipe; also ground pecans are an excellent option
- powdered sugar
- dark chocolate
HOW TO MAKE THESE DELICIOUS CRESCENT COOKIES
Each year when I make these holiday cookies, they tend to be slightly different. This year I wanted more textured cookies with pieces of walnuts for my garnish, giving it more a crunch and the melt in your mouth cookie makes it a perfect cookie!
Once the ingredients are combined, shape the cookie dough into a large disc and wrap it tightly, before placing it in the refrigerator. Once you remove the dough, allow to sit at room temperature for a few minutes. By doing this, it makes it a lot easier to work with dough to create the crescent shape.
It takes 20 minutes for these cookies to bake, however, I like them a little toasty, so I left them in the oven for another 3-5 minutes. It is personal preference, but 20 minutes would be minimal amount of time. Allow them to cool before decorating, or store them in the refrigerator or freezer until your ready to decorate them.
These lovely crescent cookies melt in your mouth. Decorate them with icing sugar, or what I like to do is dip half of the cookie into melted dark chocolate and roll them with ground walnuts. They look so decorative and festive!
STORING
Store these cookies in an airtight container in a cool place or refrigerator for up to 2-3 weeks. Freeze them for up to 4-5 months in an airtight container suitable for the freezer.
Crescent Walnut Christmas Cookies
Equipment
- baking sheets
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter, room temperature
- 1/3 cup raw fine sugar
- 2 tsp water
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups sifted organic all-purpose flour
- 1 cup walnuts, finely chopped (4 tbsp extra for decorating)
- powdered sugar
- dark chocolate, melted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Cream butter and sugar using a hand or electric mixer until well combined. Add water and vanilla. Mix well.
- While using the mixer, add the flour and walnuts just until combined. Don't overmix, as the dough will become too soft.
- Chill for 1 hour or overnight. Remove from refrigerator. Roll into crescent shapes and place on ungreased baking pans or on a lined baking pan with parchment paper about 1 inch apart. If the dough is too sticky, add some flour to your hands.
- Bake for 20 minutes or long enough until the bottoms are lightly golden. Depending on your oven, it may take 25 minutes.
- Decorate with melted chocolate and finely grind walnuts or sprinkle with icing sugar.
- Stores well in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks or freeze for 4-5 months.
My family makes a version of these but we use egg whites and fold the walnuts into them as a paste to smear onto the rolled out disks. We don’t dip them or coat them in anything, just walnuts and butter carries the day. Egg wash for color makes them glow. We also sometimes make it into a nut log similar to a kolache, but not a kolache 🙂 We lost the name of them long ago and we have about half a dozen names we call them. As far as I can tell they are from before the Austro-Hungarian Empire and from that general region. I’ve been trying to research the history of them but I’m seeing a lot of variations. The only other one that looks similar like yours is one from a bakery in Youngstown, Ohio. If you have any more info about them I’d love to learn more.
Hi Douglas,
Thank you for your comment. As I understand from your description, you are referring to a kifli. We have made the jam filled kifli’s which are light and flaky pastry and you can find that recipe on my blog. Mom also made a kifli or crescent that was a more of a soft dough and she would fill it with a walnut, sugar and whipped egg white mixture. I am looking at making those in the coming months. As far as the history of the kifli’s, I read these were made by the local bread bakers during the Turkish invasion and when their attempt to take over Budapest and failed, the city bakers created the kifli in the shape of the Turkish Empire’s emblem, the crescent moon and called it kifli. It instantly became a popular pastry.
I hope this helps.
Rose