Author: Thomas Sixt is a chef, food photographer, cookbook author and blogger. Here he shares recipes, answers cooking questions and helps with cooking.
When the wind is blowing cold outside and I can bake delicious biscuits for the family in the warm oven inside.
This is pure pre-Christmas joy.
When the delicate scent of the delicious pastries fills the room, the first curious people come running into your bakery and want to snack – who can blame them?
But we’re not quite there yet… That’s why we two master bakers want to start baking now.
My five most important tips for your perfect Kipferl:
Be sure to use fresh vanilla for the batter! Vanilla sugar is practical, but the fine aroma from the pulp of the vanilla pod beats the industrial product by far. You can even put the scraped pods in a sugar bowl with fine sugar and “harvest” homemade vanilla sugar after a few days.
Eggs are not required. It is a shortcrust pastry that can do without eggs. If you like eggs, use only the yolk.
Sift the flour for the preparation. Yes, please sift the flour… What we sometimes save on when making cakes is essential for the cookie crescents! This is the only way to achieve the fine consistency of the dough.
Leave the dough wrapped in cling film in the fridge for at least one hour. Top confectioners and star chefs leave the biscuit dough in the refrigerator for 24 hours or more to improve the taste.
After baking, roll the croissants in the icing sugar/vanilla sugar mixture while they are still lukewarm. In this way, the icing sugar adheres optimally.
Scrape out the pulp from the vanilla bean
to sift flour
Hot vanilla crescents in powdered sugar
4. Variant Vegan Vanilla Crescents
I bake my croissants in the traditional way. That’s why I don’t want to withhold the vegan version from you.
Here is the modification of the list of ingredients for you (amount for about 40 biscuits):
For the dough
160 grams of flour
40 grams of sugar
1 vanilla bean, the marrow
100g margarine
60g finely ground almonds
5-7 tbsp soy milk or oat milk – check batter consistency, batter should be hard to tear
1 pinch of salt
For pollination
3 tbsp powdered sugar
2 packets of vanilla sugar
5. Baking Secrets For Vanilla Crescents
First of all, I would like to ask you a question 🙂 Can you fall in love instantly? The answer is yes, in these vanilla crescents!
What makes these tender vanilla croissants so irresistible?
Vanilla , ground almonds , flour , butter , sugar and a little salt make up the incredibly delicious mixture.
A good 100 years ago, some of the ingredients mentioned were difficult to obtain and expensive.
Vanilla pods were almost weighed in gold.
Only nobles and nobles could afford the luxury of such biscuits.
Nowadays we are luckier and everything is wonderfully available for us in the supermarket.
A piece of Christmas too, right?
Digression on vanilla – our main ingredient:
Our Vanilla feel-good spice comes from the pulp of the fermented pods of the Vanilla orchid genus.
Originally, the spice vanilla comes from Mexico and Central America.
Vanilla is now also grown in other places.
The Bourbon vanilla from Réunion – formerly Île Bourbon – is well known.
Vanilla crescents, popular biscuits at Christmas time, are also a delicious tea biscuit all year round!
Baking recommendation from chef Thomas Sixt
Butter and vanilla bean with dough ingredients in baking bowl
Vanilla pulp on the tip of a knife
6. The Best Way To Store Homemade Vanilla Crescents
I prefer to store my biscuits in a cookie jar made of tin (glass or ceramic also works), which I line with baking paper .
Place a piece of paperbetween each layer of croissants . That way the cookies don’t get soggy.
Hide the tin with the vanilla crescents really well… once the pack has discovered the loot, you have to bake it fresh!
Hi Thomas!
These are pretty great cookies and they taste like my grandmother made them.
The family recipe has unfortunately disappeared and I have searched for a new one.
The cookies turned out quite fine.
Thank you so much for this!