Walnut Crescent Biscuits
These walnut crescent biscuits are easy and fast to make. Their buttery shortbread texture gives a little resistant crunch before melting in your mouth. Irresistible and moreish they are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee!
These biscuits appear throughout the world, eaten during the festive season and through winter they are often given as Christmas edible gifts. This particular version is from Hungary, known as Hókifli.
During the lead up to Christmas my work colleague couldn’t stop talking about them and it became a running joke where he wasn’t going to come over to our house if there was no walnut crescent biscuits (aka- Hókifli) available.
So here is his favourite recipe for these melt-in-the-mouth biscuits and if you like these you might also like my Viennese biscuit recipe.
If you decide to give this recipe a try, let me know! Leave a comment below and rate it – it’s really helpful to me and other readers knowing what you think! And don’t forget to take a picture and tag me @thegourmetlarder or hashtag it #thegourmetlarder on Instagram or Facebook. I love seeing what you’ve been baking! 🙂
RECIPE HIGHLIGHTS
- EASE: Fast and easy.
- GREAT FOR: friends and family visiting. They also make a wonderful homemade gift!
- TASTE: sweet, buttery and nutty.
- TEXTURE: A little crunch before melting in the mouth.
© THE GOURMET LARDER. All images and content are copyright protected. If you want to share this recipe, please do so using the share buttons provided. Please do not republish the recipe or its content in full instead, include a link to this post for the recipe. Further information can be found in my FAQ’s.
INGREDIENTS
For this walnut crescent biscuit recipe all you need are these ingredients:
- Butter – adds structure and flavour. I use salted butter for most of my baking as it intensifies the flavours, but feel free to use unsalted if you prefer. Make sure it’s at room temperature before using.
- Powdered / icing sugar – adds refined sweetness and structure, as well as ensures that melt-in-the-mouth texture.
- Pure vanilla extract or paste – adds flavour and enhances the other ingredient flavours in the recipe.
– Vanilla recommendations: pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste or vanilla pods.
- Ground walnuts – add flavour, moisture, texture and structure to the recipe.
- Plain or all-purpose flour – to build structure, as we do not use any other raising agents.
TIP: I highly recommend adding a good pinch of salt to your desserts. Salt helps balance out the sweetness and richness. It also elevates the other ingredients, bring out the best characteristics of any recipe. In a seemingly absurd or contradictory way, salt intensifies the mouths ability to taste sweetness. It is the sodium that sends signals to move glucose into the sweet taste receptor cells in our tongue. The result is that salt not only alerts our ‘salt sensitivity’, but also our ‘sweet sensitive’ taste buds. I recommend Maldon Sea salt flakes or Cornish sea salt.
SUBSTITUTIONS
While I am making recommendations for alternative ingredients, I haven’t necessarily tried them. If you try making any adaptions, I would love to know how you get on and share it with the other readers.
GLUTEN-FREE OPTION
- Flour: replace the gluten flour with a 1:1 alternative gluten free flour, such as Doves Farm Free plain gluten free flour. If possible, choose a flour which contains xanthan gum or alternatively, add 1 tsp to your batter for stability. You can also try Doves Farm gluten free self-raising flour.
VEGAN OPTIONS
- Butter: I recommend Naturli vegan block or Flora plant-based block butter alternative.
SUGAR-FREE AND LOW-CALORIE OPTIONS
- Icing sugar suggestions: try alternatives such as Pure Via Baker’s icing sugar or Canderel Bake! sugar free icing sugar.
WHAT VARIATIONS CAN I MAKE?
- Biscuit flavours – can easily be changed. Try adding orange or lemon zest for a citrus hit.
- Alternative nuts – another great option is to use almonds or hazelnuts instead of walnuts and you can even add a little almond extract to enhance the taste further.
If you experiment, Please leave a comment at the bottom of the post – it’s really helpful to me and other readers knowing how you got on and I regularly update these posts and the feedback I receive helps to make the recipes even more useful.
NUTRITION
Serving: one biscuit
Nutrition information can vary for a recipe based on factors such as precision of measurements, brands, ingredient freshness, or the source of nutrition data.
I strive to keep the information as accurate as possible but make no warranties regarding its accuracy.
I encourage you to make your own calculations based on the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
STORAGE AND FREEZING
These biscuits will keep in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Freezing the baked biscuits – cool the biscuits completely after baking and place them in a freezer bag or airtight container. They will last up to 1 month. When you are ready to serve, allow the cookies to reach room temperature before serving.
© THE GOURMET LARDER. All images and content are copyright protected. If you want to share this recipe, please do so using the share buttons provided. Please do not republish the recipe or its content in full instead, include a link to this post for the recipe. Further information can be found in my FAQ’s.
TOOLS YOU’LL NEED
For this recipe, you do not need to have any specialist equipment apart from a few basics, a electric hand or stand mixer is optional:
This tray is ideal for smaller bakes. sometimes I don’t always want to use my main baking tray that came with my oven as it is so big. This one is just the right size and I can use the silicone baking mat on it.
I love using these baking mats. They stop everything sticking to the baking tray and are really easy to clean.
These strainers are durable and sturdy, built to last, for a wide range of needs in the kitchen.
Please check out my Shop for a curated collection of some of my favourite baking equipment. The Gourmet Larder is an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
TIP: I highly recommend using metric measurements and a digital kitchen scale, rather than cup measurements. If you have ever ended up with dry, dense or crumbly baked goods, it might be because of inaccurate volume measurements, not all measuring cups are made equally. All my recipes on this blog are carefully developed so that you can easily recreate them in your own kitchen with success, using metric measurements. It is also a lot easier, less messy and you will get far better, consistent results. 🙂
If you are interested in understanding conversions, here you will find the best conversion chart.
RECIPE TIPS
Troubleshooting Crumbly Dough – if the dough holds together when you press it in your fist, then it is perfect. The dough is supposed to be a little crumbly. If it doesn’t come together, try dampening your hands just a little with cold water. This should help to bring the dough together to form a dough ball.
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Walnut Crescent Biscuits
- A baking tray (see equipment suggestions on blog page)
INGREDIENTS LIST
- 200 g plain flour (all-purpose)
- 50 g icing sugar (US powdered sugar)
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract or 1/4 tsp of vanilla paste
- 70 g ground walnuts
- 150 g butter
Preparation
- In a medium mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and mix in.
- If your walnuts are not already ground, grind the walnuts using an electric mixer or place them inside a kitchen towel and crush them with a rolling pin.
- Add the ground walnuts and the flour to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly.
- I find the mixture is crumbly at first and then comes together in my fist as I squeeze it to form a dough. This can also be done in an electric mixer until it forms the crumb texture and then finished by hand to form the dough.
- Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment or silicon mats.
- Once the dough has come together, cut off a large golf ball size piece and roll it out until it is about 1cm thick.
- Cut the cylinder into 6cm (2.3 inches) length pieces.
- Take each piece and gently squeeze and roll the ends, so that the ends become a little pointed like a croissant.
- Now bend the piece into a crescent shape and place it on the baking tray.
- Continue until all the dough has been used up and then chill in the fridge for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven 170°C fan / 375°F / Gas 5.
- Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until pale golden-brown. Set aside to cool on the baking trays for 5 minutes and then dust with icing sugar.
Notes & Tips
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Can’t believe this is the first comment – these biscuits are deeelicious! I made a batch a couple of weeks ago and they lasted about 48 hours (household of 3). Just making them again now, although short on walnuts, so have substituted with toasted hazelnuts. Thanks!
I am happy that you like them. And the hazelnut version sounds great.
Hi i want to ask you if i can make your crescents by using more walnut and much less of the all purpose gluten free flour for less carbs? I’ m gluten free but it is too high in carbs. Thankyou so much. I like to hear from you very soon please.
Dear Rosa, due to some technical issues I only just received your message just now. I can only suggest giving it a go as I have not tried it myself. I would have thought that the ground walnuts act in a similar way to flour, although they may make the biscuit more crumbly. Good luck if you give it a go and let me know how they came out.
These are delicious and moreish, perfectly buttery and crumbly, not overly sweet and a good amount of walnut. I made a double batch and added a tsp of salt as I was using unsalted butter. I must have made mine quite a bit larger as my double batch yielded just over 40 biscuits. One tray came out slightly more golden and these were a little tastier. Thanks for a great recipe!
Thanks for the feedback and really happy to hear you tried the recipe and enjoyed them.