The perfect sweet treat alongside your coffee! These Italian almond crescent cookies are an Italian style shortbread that only need 5 minutes prep. Subtly sweet, crumbly cookie perfection!
Why We Love This
There’s nothing better than a batch of almond crescent cookies to fill your house with that wonderful aroma of warm and cosy holiday baking.
These beautiful crescent shaped cookies look beautiful out on a table for guests, or make perfect sweet treats for Christmas, special occasions or just because.
Quick Tip
Make your almond cookies any shape you like! Roll out the dough and press using cookie cutters, or make handmade shapes like the crescents we made today. For more shape ideas, check out our koulourakia cookies.
What are Almond Crescent Cookies?
Almond crescent cookies are an Italian style shortbread or biscotti, also known as frollini. You’ll find them served up at Christmas celebrations or even as a breakfast cookie with a hot cuppa.
Some versions of these almond biscuits are coated in icing sugar, and some not, others are baked in a range of shapes from circles, stars, crescents and love hearts.
Not to be confused with cantucci biscotti – or any other type of biscotti – as biscotti just means biscuit in Italian! Where cantucci is crunchy and hard, frollini is crumbly and soft.
Reader Cooking Success Stories
Recipe festively unwrapped from Laura and Sarah.
These moon shaped parcels had a dusting of icing sugar and carried a light buttery crumb, yum!
Where We Learned This:
This was an handwritten recipe from one of Sarah’s Mum’s customers back in the early 1980’s. She remembers her as a sweet old Italian lady, who’d always bring in a written recipe – complete with little diagrams and drawings so you knew how to make the biscuit shape and get it just right.
What You’ll Need
- All Purpose Flour – Just regular plain flour is all you need! Sub with coconut flour.
- Almond Meal – This is like an almond flour found at most supermarkets. Sub with finely crushed almonds or walnuts.
- Butter – We use salted butter in most of our baking, but you can use regular butter and add ½ tsp of salt if you need. Soften it slightly in the microwave, but don’t melt as this will make the dough much harder to work with.
- Icing Sugar – Using powdered sugar will give you the smooth melty texture of shortbread, but you can use caster sugar or regular sugar if you need – the texture will just be a little different but just as tasty!
- Egg Yolks – These help bind all the ingredients together. Leftover egg whites? Try our pavlova roll or chewy Italian almond cookies!
- Vanilla Essence – Popular alternatives are almond essence or freshly grated lemon zest.
Wandercook’s Tips
- Dough Stuck to Fingers? Wash in hot water with a drop of dish soap. This will help break down the butter in the dough and clean your hands easily.
- Flat Surface – A flat surface is perfect for bringing together the dough and kneading it until smooth.
- Less Sweet – For a less sweet biscuit, skip the icing sugar coating!
FAQs
There’s so many options for leftover egg whites. Our favourites are to make a second batch of biscuits – this time our chewy almond cookies or to whip up a pavlova roll to bring to family dinner. If you want something savoury – make yourself a batch of scrambled egg or omelette using just the whites or adding a couple more eggs into the mix.
Chilling the dough in the fridge helps to cool the butter and firm everything up. This makes it much easier to shape the dough.
Keep your cookies in an airtight container on the kitchen counter or fridge and they’ll last up to a week.
Cook these amazing Italian cookies next!
★ Did you make this recipe? Please leave a comment and a star rating below!
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cup plain flour / all purpose flour 150g / 5.3oz
- 1 ¼ cup almond meal 100g / 3.5oz, sub finely crushed almonds or walnuts
- 150 g butter softened (not melted)
- 1/2 cup icing sugar / powdered sugar 40g / 1.4oz
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
To garnish:
Instructions
- Mix the all purpose flour and almond meal into a medium bowl and make a well in the centre.1 ¼ cup plain flour / all purpose flour, 1 ¼ cup almond meal
- Add the butter, icing sugar, egg yolks and vanilla essence into the well and use your hands to work the mixture until smooth.150 g butter, 1/2 cup icing sugar / powdered sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1 tsp vanilla essence
- Place in an airtight container and chill in the fridge for one hour.
- Pre-heat oven to 170°C / 340°F.
- Line two baking trays with baking paper. Scoop out a heaped tablespoon of mixture and form a small crescent moon shape (or any shape you like!). Leave an inch gap between each cookie.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes until golden.
- Optional: Once cooled, coat with icing sugar before serving.icing sugar / powdered sugar
Recipe Notes
- Dough Stuck to Fingers? Wash in hot water with a drop of dish soap. This will help break down the butter in the dough and clean your hands easily.
- Flat Surface – A flat surface is perfect for bringing together the dough and kneading it until smooth.
- Less Sweet – For a less sweet biscuit, skip the icing sugar coating!
Nutrition
4 Comments
Brad
01/01/2024 at 5:39 pmI made these and they are super easy and amazing brings me memories back to the ones my Nonna used to make when she was with us, almost exactly what she had made us as kids, definitely will be making more. Thankyou
Wandercooks
04/01/2024 at 9:35 amThat’s amazing Brad, thanks for letting us know! It’s always so special when you can recreate a childhood favourite, glad it lived up to your expectations. 😀
Wendy
24/12/2023 at 5:26 pmThank you! Have made these twice now and they’re great!
Wandercooks
24/12/2023 at 7:24 pmAh that’s awesome Wendy, thanks for sharing!