Nusskipferl (Austrian walnut crescent cookies)
A rich, barely sweetened shortbread dough loaded with freshly ground walnuts, shaped into small crescents and rolled in vanilla sugar while still warm so it actually sticks. These are a Christmas biscuit tin staple, tender rather than crisp, and fall apart a little at the first bite, which is correct.
Prep35 min
Cook15 min
Rest60 min
Oven170°C
Servings30
Christoph's Nusskipferl, written to insist on freshly ground walnuts in a dough simple enough that they carry most of the flavour.
Ingredients
Written for a 35 × 30 cm baking sheet
Units
Temperature
Servings
Dough
- 150 g whole walnuts rounded
- 250 g flour rounded
- 80 g sugar rounded
- 1 g fine salt rounded
- 200 g cold butter, cubed rounded
- 1 egg yolk rounded
To finish
- 80 g icing sugar rounded
- 8 g vanilla sugar rounded
Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.
Method
- Grind the walnuts finely in a food processor, in short pulses, stopping before they turn to paste; they should look like coarse sand.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, salt and ground walnuts together. Rub in the cold butter until it looks like coarse crumbs, then work in the egg yolk just until a dough forms. Shape into a disc, wrap, and chill for at least 1 hour.
- Roll walnut-sized pieces of dough into thin logs, about 6 cm long, tapering slightly at the ends, and curve each into a crescent as you set it on a lined baking sheet, spaced well apart.
- Bake at 170°C for 13 to 15 minutes, until the base is pale gold and the top is still nearly white. They are very fragile hot, so leave them on the tray for 5 minutes before moving them.
- Mix the icing sugar and vanilla sugar together. While the crescents are still warm, roll each one gently in the sugar mixture until fully coated.
- Cool completely on a rack, then store in an airtight tin; a light second dusting of sugar just before serving refreshes them if they have sat a few days.
Method in the Thermomix
Written for a TM5 or TM6, 2.2 litre bowl. This covers grinding the walnuts; the dough, shaping and baking are the same as the hand method.
- Walnuts into the dry bowl. Grind 8 sec / speed 8, stopping before they turn oily and clump.
- Continue mixing the dough by hand, folding the ground walnuts through with the flour, sugar and salt as in the hand method; the dough is too stiff for the machine’s blades once the butter is worked in.
Notes
- Roll the crescents in sugar while they are still warm, not after they have cooled. Warm butter in the dough is what makes the coating stick properly; cold crescents shed most of the sugar rather than holding it.
- These are meant to be tender, almost crumbly, not crisp. A dough this rich in butter and ground nuts, with very little flour holding it together, falls apart slightly at the first bite by design.
- Chill the dough properly before shaping. A warm dough is too soft to hold the crescent shape and spreads flat in the oven instead of keeping its curve.
- They keep for 2 weeks in an airtight tin at room temperature, and freeze well unsugared for up to 2 months; sugar them fresh after thawing.
Ingredient substitutions
- Walnuts can be hazelnuts, ground the same way, for a different but equally traditional cookie.
- Vanilla sugar can be replaced entirely with icing sugar plus a few drops of vanilla extract stirred through.
- For a firmer, more snap-forward version, reduce the butter by 20 g and add an extra 20 g of ground nuts, though the classic texture is the soft, crumbly one.
- A dusting of cinnamon in the sugar coating is a regional variation worth trying.
From Christoph Mayer