Orange Crescents

There are certain aromas that are automatically connected with christmas... For me, next to the smell of my mum's gingerbread, it's the taste of oranges.

Here comes my favourite this year: Orangenkipferl. They are the fruity variant of the Vanillekipferl.

Recipe:
(Source: al dente, 13.12.2010)

250g flour
100g finely ground almonds
75g icing sugar
1 sachet of vanilla sugar
2 pinches of salt
1 orange, only grated zest
200g butter, in pieces, cold

Preheat oven to 200°C and line your baking trays with parchment paper.

Mix all the ingredients until and including orange zest in a bowl. Add butter and, with your hands, rub until you get a crumbly mixture. Then, quickly put together to a dough (in case your dough is too dry, add an egg white - I had to do that). Flatten the dough little and, covered with cling film, put in the refridgerator for about 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, take the dough out, cut into equal pieces and form equal rolls from it. Cut these into smaller or bigger pieces, depending on how big you want the cookies to be. Bend the rolls into crescents and place on your baking tray and put them in your refridgerator or out on your balcony again for about 15 minutes.

Bake for about 10 minutes (they should not turn brown!). When you take them out of the oven, dredge in icing sugar while still hot, but do that carefully, otherwise the crescents will fall apart! Let cool on a rack.