These vegan crescent cookies will taste like a nuttier friend of a shortbread cookie. The ground walnuts give them a moister texture, so they are crumbly in a melt-in-your-mouth way. And the generous dusting of the vanilla powdered sugar will lift these to Christmas cookie heights.
Add all ingredients (ground walnuts, oat flour, tapioca starch, coconut sugar, vegan butter) to a food processor and pulse until they form a ball. The ball has to be relatively dry and not sticky. Add one Tablespoon of oat flour if you feel it is too sticky.
Take your rolling mat and lightly flour it. Tear a small dough and roll it out with your hands to form a long log.
Cut the logs into 3 inches (ca. 8 cm) long pieces.
Take the pieces and form them into crescents.
Bake on parchment paper in a 350 Fahrenheit (ca. 180 °C) pre-heated oven for 12 minutes. Check at 8 minutes.
Dust them with vanilla sugar while they are still hot. Leave them on the parchment paper to cool before transferring to anywhere else to avoid breaking them.
Video
Notes
Flour your surface – I like using rice flour to dust my rolling mat. Rice flour seems to have a non-stick grainy consistency, making working with any dough easier.
Dust them when they are hot – You need to dust the crescent cookies with powdered sugar while they are hot; otherwise, the sugar will not stick to them. I usually do that while they are still on the parchment paper, as moving them while they are hot is not an easy task.
Parchment paper instead of a baking sheet – I recommend using parchment paper instead of a silicone baking sheet or cookie sheet, especially if you are baking multiple batches. That way, you can easily take out the cookies with the parchment paper to a wire rack and bake the next batch without downtime in the same baking tray. They will likely break if you use a silicone baking sheet and try to move them while they are hot.
Place them close – As there is no baking powder, baking soda, or any other type of leavening, they will not rise significantly. You can place them relatively close to each other.
When are they ready? – If they start to brown, you are too late. The crescent cookies will remain almost the same color before and after baking.
MY GRANDMA'S ORIGINAL FAMILY RECIPE
170 g all-purpose flour
140 g butter
70 g powdered sugar
70 g ground walnuts
1 egg yolk
1 packet vanilla sugar
Combine all ingredients and follow the same steps as described above under Instructions.