Prep: 20 mins
Cook: 20 mins
Total: 40 mins
Servings: 18 servings
Yield: 36 cookies
These almond crescent cookies are known as rogaliki in Polish, which literally means "little horns," because they are shaped into horn shapes or crescents. They simply melt in your mouth.
One egg yolk is used in the cookie dough but, not to worry, you can freeze leftover egg whites and save them for leftover egg white recipes.
This is similar to Polish Christmas crescent cookies except almonds are used instead of pecans. Be sure to use ground almonds (either store-bought or processed at home); chopped almonds are too chunky for these cookies.
This is a fun project for the kids because they can use their hands to help pinch the dough into walnut-size pieces and then form them into crescent-moon shapes.
Ingredients
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8 ounces (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
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1/2 cup sugar
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1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
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1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
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1/4 cup ground blanched almonds
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1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
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Confectioners' sugar, for garnish
Steps to Make It
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Gather the ingredients.
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Preheat the oven to 350 F and grab a few baking sheets.
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Cream 8 ounces room-temperature butter and 1/2 cup sugar in a large bowl or stand mixer, until light and fluffy. Beat in 1 large room-temperature egg yolk and 1 teaspoon vanilla, mixing well. Add 1/4 cup ground almonds and 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour, thoroughly incorporating.
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Shape pieces of dough (should be about walnut-sized), into crescents and place on the ungreased baking sheets. Bake 20 minutes or until slightly brown on the edges.
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Roll in confectioners' sugar while still hot. Re-roll in confectioners' sugar when cool and store tightly covered.
Nuts in Eastern European Cooking
Almonds, walnuts, and chestnuts are plentiful in Eastern Europe. Pecans are not seen as much, although they do exist in specialty desserts. Other common nuts found in much of Europe are hazelnuts, similar to filberts, and pistachios. But macadamias and others are sneaking onto the scene
Almonds Aren’t Nuts At All
If we want to get technical, an almond is not a nut at all, but a drupe. A true nut is a hard-shelled pod that contains both the fruit and seed of the plant-like chestnuts, hazelnuts, and acorns.
A drupe is a type of fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell (what we call a pit) with a seed inside. Some examples of drupes are peaches, plums, cherries, walnuts, almonds, and pecans. Here are more Eastern European Nut Cookie Recipes.
Another Eastern European Dessert Recipe Using Almonds
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Gluten-Free Almond Macaroons Recipe
| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| Servings: 18 | |
| Amount per serving | |
| Calories | 179 |
| % Daily Value* | |
| Total Fat 12g | 15% |
| Saturated Fat 7g | 33% |
| Cholesterol 48mg | 16% |
| Sodium 16mg | 1% |
| Total Carbohydrate 16g | 6% |
| Dietary Fiber 1g | 2% |
| Total Sugars 7g | |
| Protein 2g | |
| Vitamin C 0mg | 0% |
| Calcium 13mg | 1% |
| Iron 1mg | 4% |
| Potassium 34mg | 1% |
| *The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice. | |
