Vanille Kipferln (Almond Crescents)

These were my favorite christmas cookies growing up so I just had to make them this year.

The Goods:

2.5 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1.5 cups ground almonds
1 cup COLD butter
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or better, if you have the option, 1 pack vanilla sugar, which you can find in the german aisle of the commissary)

powdered sugar for dusting.

The Works:

on a large board (or just your counter, you need some room so I use the counter of my island) sift the flour. Mix the sugar, vanilla extract (or vanilla sugar), almonds into the flour. Add the butter in pieces and the egg yolks and then knead to a smooth dough. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and cool in the fridge for an hour.
Pre-heat your oven to 360 degrees, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

on your counter (or board, whatever you used), roll the dough out in portions into a long snake (kinda like a pretzel snake) till it is about 1/2 inch thick....cut 1 to 1.5 inch pieces, form into a crescent (halfmoon) and place on cookie sheet. Bake for 12 to 15 min. As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, dust with powdered sugar and let cool.

Store in a plastic container, it will keep the cookies soft and soften them if they got a bit too hard.

Enjoy