Danish Vanilla Wreath Cookies

Description

A “vaniljekrans” is basically a small round butter cookie with a crisp crust and a delicious taste of vanilla. It’s a traditional Danish cookie and it goes way back – almost every Dane remembers making these cookies with their families as kids – shaping the small round cookies is just really fun, especially for kids. Many Mexicans enjoy buñuelos this time of year – a fried thin dough covered in cinnamon sugar, but these cookies are a delicious alternative of you want to avoid the sizzling oil.
Our Mexican Vanilla Beans elevate the flavor of these cookies with woody notes that accentuate the creamy and sweet flavor profile. You have to be able to taste the vanilla in these cookies because no one wants a “vaniljekrans” without real vanilla.

Steps

1. Open 1 Mexican vanilla bean, scrape out the vanilla seeds and mix with 1 tbsp of sugar.
2. Use a food processor or a blender to ground 75g almonds into almond flour.
3. Mix 200g softened butter, 180g sugar, and the vanilla sugar from step 1 together in a bowl.
4. Add 1 egg and mix until incorporated.
5. Add the almond flour plus 250g all-purpose flour and mix it all together into a soft dough.
6. Pour the dough into a piping bag and use the star nozzle.
7. Extrude the dough into small circles with a diameter of about 4-5 cm and place the vanilla cookies on a baking tray lined with parchment paper or a baking mat.
8. Bake the cookies at 200 C for about 10-14 minutes or until they have a light-brown color.
9. Let the cookies cool off on an oven grid. When cooled off, keep the cookies in a cookie jar. ¡Buen provecho!

Author notes

You could opt for a regular plastic bag with a hole cut in one of the corner, but the dough won’t get the signature striped look and it may be harder to extrude the dough.