Crescent Cookies

My favorite cookies, crescents are the taste of Christmas for me. This gluten-free version is perfect for sharing with friends during the holiday season.

I could eat them all!

On the phone last night with my mom, I told her I’d made crescents, and she immediately said, “Oh, those were always your favorite.” True! When I was growing up, Mom and Grandma made these cookies every holiday season and, out of all the types of cookies we made—including things like ginger bread and tree-shaped sugar cookies decorated with colorful sprinkles—these were the ones I couldn’t stop eating, probably because they are so buttery.

Years ago, I asked Grandma to write out the recipe for me. I’ve had to modify it by using gluten-free flour, but the taste and texture I remember are still there. As I made this batch of crescents, following the shakily handwritten directions on the recipe card (see photo below), I realized that making crescents is probably the most direct connection I can have with her now that she is gone—thinking the same thoughts and making the same gestures that she did each time I work my way through the recipe.

Although the cookies are very simple to make, plan to give yourself enough time to soften the butter and then to chill the dough. Remove the butter from the fridge a couple of hours before making the dough, because the butter has to be very soft for blending with the sugar and flour (leave it out overnight if you want to make this first thing in the morning). Then, forming the dough into crescents is much easier if you chill the dough for a couple of hours in the refrigerator, because the warm dough is very sticky. (You’ll also want to use a spatula to mix the dough, not your hands, for the same reason.)

Although the dough doesn’t contain a leavening agent, the cookies will expand in the oven, so leave at least an inch of space between them on the buttered cookie sheet. The cookies will bake in about 20 minutes.

To sprinkle the cookies evenly with powdered sugar, I’ve found that filling a tea strainer with powdered sugar and gently tapping it over the cookies works extremely well. Grandma rolled them in a bowl of powdered sugar, covering them completely.

(For another recipe my grandmother taught me, see German potato salad.)

When I asked her for the recipe, Grandma wrote it out by hand.

Ingredients:

• ½ pound salted butter (2 sticks)

• 2 cups gluten-free flour (I used King Arthur Gluten-Free Measure for Measure flour, but if you use a different brand, make sure it contains xanthan gum)

• 5 tablespoons powdered sugar

• 1 teaspoon water

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 cup chopped pecans

• Additional powdered sugar for sprinkling over the baked cookies

Use a flat whisk or a fork to cream the butter, then mix in the 2 cups of gluten-free flour and 5 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

Instructions:

• Cream softened butter to make it soft and smooth (I used a flat whisk)

• Add the flour and sugar and mix

• Add the water and vanilla and mix

• Add the nuts and mix

• Put the dough in the refrigerator for about two hours to make it more moldable

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (375 if using convection/fan)

• Roll tablespoon-size balls of dough between the palms of your hands, then pinch them into crescent shapes and place them on a buttered cooking sheet

• Bake for approximately 20 minutes, until lightly brown

• Sprinkle powdered sugar evenly over the cookies, or roll them in a bowl of powdered sugar to cover

Mix in the vanilla, water, and nuts, and form tablespoon-size balls of dough into crescents.

This is how much dough you need for each cookie. Roll it between your hands into a cylinder, then bend it into a crescent.

Leave some space between the raw cookies, as they will expand (some of these are almost too close, as you’ll see in the next photo).

Remove the cookies when they are lightly brown. You can see here that a few were almost too close together (lower right corner).

I used a metal tea strainer o sprinkle powdered sugar over the cookies.

Aren’t they beautiful?