Today I tried following my grandma's recipe for Vanillekipferl, traditional Austrian biscuits for the Christmas season, and I thought why not share it with my fellow geminauts?
250 grams butter
300 grams flour
100 grams ground nuts or almonds (I used almonds)
170 grams powedered sugar
2 packs of vanilla sugar
Cut the butter into pieces and in a bowl mix it together with the flour, then knead the dough a bit. Then add the ground nuts/almonds, 70 grams of sugar (we save some for later) and one pack of vanilla sugar, and knead the whole thing thoroughly. Let the dough rest in the fridge for 30 minutes. Then take parts of it, roll them into strands, cut them apart and bend the pieces into small arcs. Put everything into the oven and bake until slightly golden brown (I did it at ~200 degree celsius for about 15 minutes and it might have been just a bit too long). In another bowl mix the rest of the sugar and the other pack of vanilla sugar together. When the Kipferl are done, roll them around in the sugar while still warm (but not hot). Now you are done!
Here is a photo of how they turned out for me. Not too shabby I'd say, but not as good as grandma made them of course.
If you tried this recipe for yourself please let me know how it went for you in a comment!
Made another batch, this time fully plant based as I used a vegan butter alternative. I think it turned out better than the first one, but I don't know if it is due to the plant fat, the pre-ground almonds I used this time (as opposed to grinding almonds manually), the higher quality vanilla sugar, better fat-to-flour ratio (first batch used slightly different one than listed above), or my improved kneading technique. Perhaps all contributed.
Anyway, the recipients liked them a lot and that makes me very happy!
Posted 2021-12-22
