Cinnamon Walnut Crescent Cookies

Ho ho ho!  It's time for the 3rd Annual Cookie Swap at my friend Martha's.  I had no idea what to whip up for my confectionary offering this year, so I started surfing Pinterest.  I probably searched for over a week, not finding anything that I wanted to do.  I considered the Red Velvet Cream Cheese Cookies I posted here, but it seemed a bit time consuming with having to freeze the balls of cream cheese ahead of time.  I ended up finding this recipe.  Granted, it was probably just as time consuming, considering you need to chill the sour cream dough, but this recipe really intrigued me, as it looked like the cookies that my SIL's mother used to send to me at Christmas.  I LOVED those cookies.  It's been a few years, so I don't know if they taste exactly the same, but ... YUMALICIOUS -- these are good! 

Sour Cream Dough:

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 cup (4 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into tablespoon-size pieces
• 1 ½ cup sour cream
• 2 large egg, separated
• 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract 

DIRECTIONS

1. Stir the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, and cut in the butter with a fork or pastry blender until it resembles small peas.
   (I actually put all of these ingredients into my Kitchen Aid mixer and blended together that way – pretty easy)
2. Add the sour cream, egg yolk (save the white), and vanilla extract together in another bowl, blending just until combined.
   (Avoid over-mixing; a few small butter lumps are just fine.)
3. Divide the dough into five equal portions, and flatten each portion into a disk.
4. Wrap tightly in wax paper or plastic wrap, and chill 2 to 3 hours, or until the dough is quite firm.

Cinnamon-Walnut Filling:

• 1 ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 ½ cup walnut halves, toasted and cooled
• 2 tsp.ground cinnamon 

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a metal blade and process until the nuts are finely ground, but not pasty.
2. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F
3. Line two or more cookie sheets with parchment paper
   
   Roll the dough:
4. Work with one disk of dough at a time. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into a 12-inch circle, about 1/16 inch thick.
5. Trim the dough to a uniform 12-inch circle using a cake pan or plate as your cutting guide.
6. Sprinkle the top of the dough with about 2/3 cup of the filling, covering the surface as evenly as possible.
7. Gently press the filling into the dough.
   Cut and shape the crescents:
8. With a sharp knife or pastry wheel, cut the circle into 16 wedges.
   (I also cut the wedges BEFORE sprinkling the filling, and it worked out well.  So cutting them before or after adding the filling is fine)
9. Starting at the widest end, roll up each wedge into a crescent.
   (Don’t worry if some filling falls out – I kept rolling each crescent over the filling to add a little to the outside of each cookie)
10. Place the crescents loose ends facing down on the prepared cookie sheets.
     
11. Repeat steps with the remaining disks of dough.
12. With the scraps, create another disk of dough and chill for 2-3 hours to make a 6^th batch of cookies.
13. Whisk the reserved egg white until frothy, and brush it evenly on top of each cookie.
14. Bake 15 to 17 minutes, or until lightly browned on the top and bottom.

Yields: 80-96 cookies

(Original Recipe was half of this, but since I was making for a cookie swap, I needed to double it to what I show above)

Adapted from Julia M Usher’s blog