Christmas Baking: Bavarian Vanillekipferl

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Happy third Sunday of advent everybody! It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas and therefore it's high time to get started with the Christmas baking. Last year I shared my Gingerbread Men recipe with you guys, which you can check out here, so this year I thought I would share with you something traditionally christmassy from Germany: Vanillekipferl. These delicious vanilla biscuits can be found at every bakery and Christmas market at this time of year in Germany and are a firm favourite of mine. Living far away from home meant I couldn't just eat my grandma's or mum's biscuits but had to actually make them myself.. and I'm quite pleased with the result! I had to improvise a little bit as I couldn't get my hands on vanilla sugar here in the UK (does it exist? does anybody know?) but it worked so well! So here's how I made my delicious Vanillekipferl:

You'll need:

For the dough:

200g plain flour

pinch of baking powder

70g sugar (or 100g if you use vanilla sugar)

mark of 1 vanilla pod mixed well with 40g sugar (or 1pck vanilla sugar)

1 egg

125g soft butter

100g ground almonds

For the dusting:

50g icing sugar

mark of 1 vanilla pod mixed well with 40g sugar (or 1pck vanilla sugar)

Here's what you'll do:

Cover a baking tray with greaseproof paper and preheat your oven to 180°C.

Firstly mix together the flour and baking powder, then add the rest of the ingredients and knead the dough til you've got one smooth and super buttery ball of biscuit dough.

Form little balls out of the dough then roll those into little sausages (try to make the ends thinner then the middle) and then shape them into little crescents and place them on your baking tray.

Bake for 10 - 12 minutes. After baking pull the greaseproof paper with the Kipferl onto a wire rack and immediately dust the hot biscuits with the mixture of icing + vanilla sugar ( Don't use all of it!). After the Vanillekipferl have cooled down completely give them another dusting of the sugar mix et voilà: you're ready for Christmas :)