This is Week 3 of our Saveur Holiday Cookie Challenge: Cookies We Love. I chose to bake the Vanillekipferl, that is – Vanilla Crescent – Cookies, this week. Here’s the recipe from Saveur, with my notes following:

Vanillekipferl (Vanilla Crescents)

(Yield: 4 dozen cookies)

Ingredients:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus more for finishing cookies
16 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla extract
5 oz. walnuts, finely ground in food processor
2 1/2 cups flour, plus more for rolling

Preparation:

Heat oven to 325°. Beat together sugar, butter, and vanilla in a bowl; mix in nuts and flour. Flour and roll into a cylinder; divide into 48 pieces. Roll each into a sausage shape. Taper ends; bend into a crescent. Transfer to parchment paper-lined baking sheets, spacing cookies 1″ apart. Bake until golden, 12–15 minutes. Sift with confectioners’ sugar. Let cool.

Notes:

Of the cookies I baked from this series so far, these are by far our favorites. Crispy and tender, excellent flavor, and since you dust them with the confectioners’ sugar while they’re still hot, they don’t shed as much sugar on you when you eat them. I worry about that with powdered sugar covered cookies. That’s why I avoid doughnuts with powdered sugar on them, too.

I did find, however, that the dough was a bit more difficult to work with than I thought it would be. It kept coming apart on me when I tried to roll it into a cylinder. I found it was easier to divide the dough into 4 parts, roll those into something vaguely resembling a cylinder, then just pull off pieces of dough and roll them into balls a little smaller than a ping pong ball. I could then feel the dough melding together in the warmth of my hands, which made it much easier to then roll each piece into a small sausage, then crescent shape.

You should definitely make these cookies. They’re delicious and a very pretty addition to a holiday cookie platter. I’m going to make another batch.

Please be sure to visit my comrades in cookies to see what they chose to serve up!

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings (that’s me!)

Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project

Courtney of Coco Cooks

I feel kind of bad that I haven’t posted anything recently for The 12 Weeks of Holiday (Christmas) Cookies. Since this is the last day of that cookie roundup, I hope they’ll let me count this one. Please visit these wonderful cookie bakers, too! Happy Holidays to All!

Week 12 Twelve Weeks of Christmas:

This is Week 2 of our Saveur Holiday Cookie Challenge: Cookies We Love. I chose to bake the Alfajores, a popular Latin-American dulce de leche sandwich cookie. Here’s the recipe from Saveur, with my notes following:

Alfajores (Latin-American Dulce de Leche Sandwich Cookies)
(makes about 20 sandwich cookies)

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cups cornstarch
1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup sugar
10 tbsp. unsalted butter,
softened
1 tbsp. cognac or brandy
1/2 tsp. lemon zest
4 egg yolks
Canned dulce de leche, for filling
cookies

Preparation:

Heat oven to 350°.

In a bowl, sift together cornstarch, flour, and baking powder; set aside. In a mixer fitted with a paddle, beat together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add cognac and zest; beat. Add yolks one at a time; beat. Add dry ingredients; mix.

Transfer dough to a floured surface, knead briefly; divide into 3 pieces. Working with 1 dough piece at a time, roll dough to 1/4″ thickness. Using a 2 1/2″ round cookie cutter, cut out cookies; transfer to parchment paper—lined baking sheets, spaced 1″ apart. Reroll scraps and repeat.

Bake until golden, 12–15 minutes. Let cool. Flip half the cookies over; top each with 1 heaping tsp. dulce de leche. Top with remaining cookies.

Notes:

I have to say one thing, right off the bat: Really, Saveur?!? Canned dulce de leche?!? Dulce de leche is the easiest thing ever to make at home, provided you give it the proper time and attention. See my instructions on making dulce de leche of a few weeks ago, here. Please don’t use ready-made dulce de leche if you can avoid it. Real dulce de leche should only contain milk and sugar. The ready-made variety in cans and squeeze bottles has loads of other stuff in it. Make it yourself. It lasts for-freaking-ever in the fridge.

This is a nice, sturdy, crispy butter cookie. I used Orange Curacao instead of the brandy, and I honestly believe I could have skipped the liqueur and just used a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

This is a serious question for you guys, and I want you to be honest: Have you ever filled a sandwich cookie where the filling didn’t just goosh out? Or the top cookie slide off the filling? *Postscript – A day later, the dulce de leche filling set up. The tops are now firmly attached and no sliding. Guess I was impatient. The moral? Fill the cookies and leave them on a level surface for a couple of hours before storing!

The verdict? This is a very quick and easy to work with cookie. Except for the filling part. And it’s delicious. But, despite the elegant dulce de leche, unless you dump a boatload of holly on the plate, it just isn’t fancy or seasonal enough for the holidays, in my opinion. The search continues…

Please be sure to visit my comrades in cookies to see what they chose to serve up!

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings (that’s me!)

Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project

Courtney of Coco Cooks

Dulce De Leche

Last year at this time, our intrepid troupe of cookie bakers were baking The 12 Days of Cookies, attempting to bake 12 holiday cookies in 12 days. While I did eventually bake all 12 cookies, I don’t think I finished until January! This year, the group decided to take it a little easier and bake 4 cookies in 4 weeks, thereby saving what’s left of our sanity. This year, we’re baking our choice of any four of the nine cookies in the Smart Cookies: Favorite Holiday Cookies From Around the World collection from Saveur, and calling our series:

One of my favorite cookies to bake and eat, is biscotti. These crunchy twice-baked beauties are light and flavorful, packed with hazelnuts and almonds, and just perfect with a cup of coffee or tea. I also find them one of the first cookies to disappear from the cookie platter! So when I spotted this recipe in this year’s collection, it had to be the first one I baked.

First the recipe, directly from Saveur, followed, as always, by my notes.

Tozzetti (Roman-Style Biscotti)

Ingredients:

Butter, for greasing pan
3 1/2 cups flour, plus more for pan
1 tbsp. baking powder
2 cups whole blanched almonds, toasted
1 1/2 cups whole blanched hazelnuts, toasted
2 1/4 cups sugar
5 eggs
*1/4 cup anise-flavored liqueur, like
sambuca
*1 tbsp. crushed aniseed
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Preparation:

Heat oven to 375° F. Grease and flour a 10″ x 15″ jelly roll pan; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder; toss in nuts. In a bowl, whisk together sugar and eggs; whisk in sambuca*, aniseed*, and vanilla. Add flour mixture; fold. Pour into pan; bake until golden, 20 minutes. Let biscotti cool.

Reduce oven temperature to 325° F. Remove cooled biscotti slab from pan; cut crosswise into twenty 10″-long strips; cut each strip in half to form forty 5″-long strips. Transfer strips to parchment paper-lined baking sheets, spacing strips 1/2″ apart. Bake until golden brown, 20–25 minutes. Let cool.

Notes:

This recipe is very different from most biscotti recipes, in that it’s a loose batter poured into the pan, rather than a dough shaped into a loaf. That attracted me, initially, because it seemed that there would be at least one less step. The result is a more rustic-looking cookie. Compare to last year’s Bon Appetit Holiday Biscotti, a cookie I’ve been baking all year-long (without the white chocolate dip), I love it so much.

At the risk of repeating myself, I can’t stand anise or anything that even remotely tastes like black licorice. So it won’t come as a surprise that I omitted the sambuca and aniseed from this recipe. Instead, I substituted 1/4 cup of Grand Marnier and 1/2 Tbs. almond extract. I probably would have used Amaretto instead of the Grand Marnier, but my husband stashed it in the top cabinet over the refrigerator, and I didn’t feel like dragging out the tall step-stool to get it down (it’s the giant 1.75 liter bottle and damn heavy – we do everything big around here). Also, a bit of grated orange zest would not have been amiss.

And then I discovered that I don’t own a 10″ x 15″ jelly roll pan. My pans all seem to be 12″ x 17″. ->Sigh<- But you know what? Didn’t make one bit of difference. Except, of course, that I got more and bigger cookies! My yield was 45 6-inch biscotti (including the rejects) rather than the recipe’s 40 5-inch yield.

The verdict? This is without a doubt, a very tasty cookie. And since there’s no butter in the recipe (except for greasing the pan – and you can use cooking spray instead), it makes an excellent choice if you’re cutting calories or avoiding dairy for whatever reason. So it comes down to personal preference, and honestly, I’m going back to my old love.

Please be sure to visit my comrades in cookies to see what they chose to serve up!

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes

Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen

Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook

Judy of No Fear Entertaining

Kelly of Sass & Veracity

Michelle of Big Black Dog

RJ of Flamingo Musings (that’s me!)

Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench

Tiffany of The Nesting Project

Courtney of Coco Cooks