A Homestead Christmas: Vanillekipferl

image source: lecker.de

I love Christmas and Yule-tide!  Few things have a warmer place in my childhood memories than celebrating the season with wonderful family traditions.  Traditions that included home-baked, made from scratch, cookies every year.  As there are limited weekends before the big event, and Advent starts on November 30th, I thought I'd get this year's festivities off to a start with some recipes - beginning with one of my favorites - Vanillekipferl.

Pronounced: Vah-Nil-Ay-Kip-Furl, these are delicate almond and vanilla flavored confections that are relatively easy to whip up but will have everyone thinking you've spent ages on them.  The only tricky part is their delicate nature after baking so take care when removing them from the baking sheet and when coating in vanilla sugar.

What you'll need:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup white sugar
3/4 cups ground almonds (use a coffee grinder)
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 of a vanilla bean

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325F (170C)
Mix dry ingredients
Cut in butter with a pastry blender (or fork) then quickly knead into a dough
Shape dough into logs 1/2" and cut off 2" pieces
Shape into crescent shapes and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet
Bake approx. 8 - 10 minutes or until just slightly golden (don't let them get too dark)
Cool 1 minute, then carefully roll in or dust with vanilla sugar.

To make vanilla sugar:
blend 1/2 vanilla bean with 1 cup sugar in a blender or small coffee grinder - make sure to pulse - then sieve.
The vanilla sugar will be like powdered sugar.

Steader's tip: I usually keep vanilla flavored sugar on hand year round. I make it by putting a couple of vanilla beans in a container of white cane sugar and allowing the sugar to become infused.  This infused sugar can then be ground/pulsed to create the powdery sugar called for above.  It's also excellent in everything from coffee to tea to cereal.

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