80-110 appr.
Easy
30 min.-1 hour
30-40 minutes
My first Christmas in Austria was 7 years ago and Vanillekipferl were the first Austrian cookies I tried…and it was love at first bite. My mother in law had prepared them and she gave me her recipe to learn how to bake them. I’ve prepared them every year since then. These cookies are no surprise for Austrians, you can get them everywhere and there are lots of different ways to prepare them, but until today I haven’t tried softer Vanillekipferl than these ones. They are very easy to prepare, they don’t have eggs, so if you replace the butter for a plant-based option, you have a vegan recipe. My sister in law is lactose intolerant, so I’ve decided to always bake cookies and cakes with lactose-free butter, and I think that’s the secret why my cookies are always so soft. You have to be a bit more patient when preparing them, because the dough it’s so buttery that breaks easily, but trust me, it’s all worth it! Please give this recipe a try and let me know if you liked it.
Ingredients
- 250 g soft butter (ideally lactose-free butter)
- 330 g flour
- 120 g ground walnuts
- 120 g icing/powdered sugar (sifted)
Extras:
- 100 g icing/powdered sugar (sifted)
- 6 tsp / 3 Packages of Vanilla Sugar
Instructions
- Make sure the butter is extra soft before you start.
- Mix all the ingredients with a hand mixer or a kitchen machine until all the ingredients are well mix together and they form a dough.
- Cover the dough and let it rest in the fridge for minimum 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 160°C – 170°C.
- Knead the dough gently with your hands to warm it up. Take small pieces and form thin stripes or rolls of approx. 7-8 cm long each.
- Grab the ends of each of the pieces with your fingertips and gently give them a crescent shape or a horseshoe shape.
- Put them on a baking tray with baking paper and bake them for 10 minutes approx. at a maximum of 170°C. Be careful, the cookies can easily overcook, they shouldn’t get too golden, otherwise they will be hard. Your second batch should cook faster, so you have to check them constantly.
- Meanwhile on a bowl, mix with a spoon the rest of the icing/ powdered sugar with the Vanilla Sugar.
- Take the cookies out of the oven, let them rest for a minute. While they are still hot, take one by one into the bowl with the sugar. Cover them with this mixture with the help of two spoons.
- You can put them on a cookie box or air-tight food container and they will last for many days.