Traditional Austrian Vanillekipferl

Traditional Austrian Vanillekipferl

My great grandfather decided it would be wise to leave Vienna as tensions were rising in mainland Europe at the start of the second world war. He packed up and moved his family to the UK where my grandmother would later meet my grandfather and start her own family. While I grew up in England and feel very British, there's no doubting that there are many Austrian influences that remain within our family.

At Christmas each year, it has become tradition for our family to devour vast quantities of Vanillekipferl, usually after Christmas dinner amongst other goodies, but I seem to find myself popping one or two into my mouth while preparing the turkey. This is my great grandmother's recipe that has been handed down from generation to generation, and I hope will be passed on to many more to come.

If you don't have a food processor, you can chop the almonds and rub them with the butter and flour before kneading in the sugar and yolks to create a dough ball.

36
40m
Serves
36
Prep
30m
Cook
10m
Total
40m
Video

Ingredients

100g whole almonds

200g all-purpose flour

150g cold butter

50g castor sugar

2 egg yolks

20g vanilla sugar

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF. Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
  2. Quickly blitz the almonds in a food processor to finely chop them, then add the flour, butter and sugar and blitz again until texture of fine breadcrumbs.
  3. Add the yolks to the food processor and blitz again briefly until a dough ball is formed.
  4. Take 14g walnut sized pieces and shape into small crescent shaped forms and place on baking sheet.
  5. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. As soon as you remove them from the oven, roll the crescents in vanilla sugar before leaving to rest on a cooling rack.

Ingredients

100g whole almonds

200g all-purpose flour

150g cold butter

50g castor sugar

2 egg yolks

20g vanilla sugar

Tap for method

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF. Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
  2. Quickly blitz the almonds in a food processor to finely chop them, then add the flour, butter and sugar and blitz again until texture of fine breadcrumbs.
  3. Add the yolks to the food processor and blitz again briefly until a dough ball is formed.
  4. Take 14g walnut sized pieces and shape into small crescent shaped forms and place on baking sheet.
  5. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes. As soon as you remove them from the oven, roll the crescents in vanilla sugar before leaving to rest on a cooling rack.

Nutrition

Calories
76
Fat
5.1
g
Saturates
2.4
g
Carbs
6.8
g
Sugars
2.1
g
Fibre
0.5
g
Sodium
25
mg
Protein
1.4
g

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