Man, the Christmas cookie recipes and pics are piling up. Hmm, I seem to have developed an obsession with them this year.

I had some trepidation about posting this particular Christmas cookie. As I wrestled with rolling out endless walnut-sized lumps of dough, making crescents seemed a lot fussier to me than it did last year. I distinctly remember the dough being a joy to work with: smooth and pliable, not like silly putty, but better.

This year the dough was still quite pliable, but behaved much more stickily. Rather than flour, this recipe uses confectioners’ sugar to smooth out handling and rolling, and I found myself using the powdery stuff quite liberally.

However, the end result? “This is the cookie Grandma was trying to make,” intoned my aunt Linda. “These are lighter, flakier, and…mmm….” and her speech devolved into sounds of food enjoyment.

The cookie she speaks of is descended from the eastern European “kipfel” — a barely sweet dough made with sour cream that is wrapped about a walnut filling. They’re a relative of rugelach, if you’re familiar with those. Unlike rugelach, they’re more demanding: rather than roll out a large circle of dough, spreading filling and cutting it into wedges which are then rolled, nutty crescents are made from individual balls of dough, rolled into 6-inch circles and then filled and rolled into a crude crescent, or horn, shape.

The main difference is both the lack of fruit and that the filling is (mostly) contained. In spite of a bakers’ best intentions, a bit of filling often oozes out the ends. But you know what? That’s okay, because the tidbits of caramelized filling on the ends are tasty in themselves.

Nutty crescents aren’t hard, per se; beyond beating the egg whites, there are no complicated maneuvers. However, you should set aside a good couple hours of pure hands-on time for rolling and filling.

And I’ve gone ahead and decided to post them because, in spite of feeling they were a bit fussy, the end result is so delectable that the trouble is worth it.

nutty crescents

You’ll need 4 eggs total. Three separated for the dough and filling, and one beaten egg on its own in the filling. Recipe source: Grandma D. Transcribed from chickenscratch and edited for clarity.

prep: 45 minutes, then waiting for dough/filling to chill
bake: 15-20 minutes
servings: about 3 dozen cookies
oven: 350 degrees

Dough:

1 cup butter, softened
3 beaten egg yolks (reserve whites for filling)
1 cup sour cream, room temperature
3 cups of flour
1-1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt

———-
Filling:

1-1/2 cups of chopped nuts (I use walnuts)
1 cup sugar
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoon butter, softened
2 teaspoons milk (water is all right too)
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg whites, stiffly beaten
copious amounts of confectioners’ sugar, for rolling out the dough

Make the dough:

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl, cream the butter, three egg yolks, and sour cream. The mixture won’t be smooth; the sour cream will persist in remaining in small bits. Just keep mixing until the bits are pea-sized or smaller. Mix in the dry ingredients. Separate dough into two pieces, wrap each piece securely in plastic wrap, and chill for at least two hours, or overnight. Keep dough cold.

Make the filling:

If you haven’t yet, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. In a medium bowl, mix together chopped nuts, sugar, one beaten egg, butter, milk, and vanilla. Fold into the stiffly beaten egg whites. Cover and chill for at least two hours, or overnight

Get ready to bake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet(s) with parchment.

If you let your bits chill overnight, the egg whites in the filling may have begun to destabilize. Don’t worry; it won’t affect the finished product. Gently stir the re-liquefied egg whites back into the filling using the same motions you do when folding, so as not to disturb the still-intact beaten egg whites too much.

Keep dough chilled as much as possible while putting these together. When the dough warms, it gets sticky and difficult to work with. Use one half of the dough at a time, leaving the other in the fridge.

Preparing each crescent:

Using your hands, form a walnut-sized ball from the dough. You’ll be rolling this out. Dust your rolling surface with confectioners’ sugar, and the rolling pin as well. A cloth rolling pin cover and mat are very helpful here. Roll out the ball of dough as thin as it will go — about 6 inches in diameter. Use confectioners’ sugar liberally if the dough seems to be sticking at all. Don’t worry; you really can’t use too much.

Spread a teaspoon of filling, covering about 2/3 of the dough circle and keeping clear of the edges. Roll up the circle around the filling, saving the 1/3 empty side for last. This is to compensate for the filling spreading a bit as it’s pushed by the rolling. However, just roll gently; it’s counterproductive to roll it super-tightly. With your fingertips, pinch the edges of the dough closed, bend it to form a curve, if desired, and lay seam-side down on a baking sheet.

Repeat until sheet is filled, leaving an inch or two space between each nutty crescent.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ap flour, walnuts

Here’s one amazing thing to do with leftover scraps of puff pastry: make mini palmiers. A good idea for snacks for a crowd. They’ll go fast, though!

Warning: drunken post ahead

My cousin Tone is in town, and he brought a big ass RV and several other modes of transportation with him. I countted five: the RV, the pickup, motorcycle, 4-wheeler and…kayak.

He’s set up house across the driveway. Yay.

He’s from Texas, like his mom —my aunt — who paradoxically was originally from right here. Like, right in this house. The oldest of my paternal triumvirant, Geriann, is his mom, and okay, this is getting both involved and a bit pedantic.

He came over tonight and we played 500 rummy. Four times. He completely, totally obliterated my ass the first two times. He played it a bit gin rummy style, holding things back to kick my ass, playing mind games, and so forth.

I fixed that right quick

Here, have some Wal-Mart wine, Tone.

Did you know that Wal-Mart, like Trader Joe’s, has a house brand of wine that will blow you away? In fact, I think the Wal-Mart brand is even better. It must be, because I’m having to spell-check this very carefully, and I don’t get this buzzed unless the alcohol is very good.

Wal-Mart markets two (at least) wonderful varieties under the Oak Leaf label: cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc. Since I’m partial to reds, I buy the cabernet quite often. It used to be $2.97, and therefore comparable to two-buck chuck. I think it’s better. They just raised it — today— to $3.49, but I still think it’s a steal.

And I’m not some rube. I’ve had some very good wines in my day. This compares.

The first two games of rummy he smoked my ass. However, he was drinking this lovely cabernet the whole time, and by the third game I was able to smoke him, 605 to 390. Yay! I have to say he was a good foil; I’d never played 500 rummy with someone who played so strategically.

And man that was hard to spell.

Ultimately, we went through 2 and a half bottles of Wal-Mart cabernet. He is going to go buy more tomorrow if he knows what is good for him.

As for snacks, we began by stabbing, literally, at a pink brandywine. My tomatoes just succumbed to late blight, and I’m pulling all the tomatoes off the vines. It is very sad, and let us all share a moment of silence for them. He loved it; it was nearly as flavorful as my previous crop of pink brandywines, which means very smoky and rich.

A bit afterwards, in the third game actually — coincidentally, the one where I smoked him — he got peckish again. The cad.

how dare he get peckish

I had a smallish pat of scraps of homemade puff pastry in the fridge, and I whipped it out, sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on it, and made a bit over a dozen mini palmiers from it.

He snarfed them.

Granted, anything puff pastry is going to be melt-in-your-mouth delicious, but include cinnamon sugar and you have little bursts of melty spiciness.

P.S. Did I mention I won the third game? Yeah, the one where the mini palmiers came out.

Song for this recipe: Carrion by British Sea Power.

mini palmiers

oven: 400 degrees

You might not use all of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Simply follow the recipe and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar in a thin, but complete, layer over the rolled puff pastry. Do not ball puff pastry scraps. Instead, stack them before rolling again. They will not rise as much as the original puff pastry, but they work excellently in recipes like these palmiers.

leftover scraps of puff pastry dough
3 tablespoons white granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.

With a rolling pin, roll the stacked puff pastry scraps in a rectangle roughly 1/16 of an inch thick.

Sprinkle cinnamon sugar in a thin layer over the rolled puff pastry, covering it completely.

With your hands, roll one side of the sugared puff pastry to the middle of the rectangle. Repeat on the opposite side.

With a sharp knife or pastry scraper, cut the rolled pastry in 1/8 of an inch wide increments. You now have your raw mini palmiers!

Place the mini palmiers on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet. Leave ample space between them; they may still expand quite a bit as they bake.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until very lightly browned.

© Amy for Shiny Cooking, 2009. | Permalink | Leave a comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ap flour, cinnamon