Vanillekipferl (German Vanilla Crescent Cookies)

They were either too hot or handled too firmly. Straight from the oven the butter in the crumb is still liquid and the cookie has no structure, so it snaps at the thinnest point, usually the tips. Wait 2 to 3 minutes, until you can lift one with two fingers without it bending, then roll only three or four at a time in a shallow dish. If a batch still feels fragile, leave the cookies on the tray and sift the sugar over them through a fine sieve; you lose a little coating on the underside and keep every crescent whole.

The dough was too warm when it went in. Kneading longer than 2 to 3 minutes, shaping with warm hands or leaving the shaped tray standing in a hot kitchen all soften the butter, and it runs before the flour has set. Keep the second log in the fridge while you shape the first, and if the kitchen is warm, put the filled tray in the fridge for 10 minutes before baking. Too much sugar or butter measured by eye has the same effect, so weigh both.

Yes, swap them gram for gram. Ground hazelnuts give a darker, more strongly flavoured cookie that many German families prefer; walnuts are the traditional choice in parts of Austria and Bohemia and make the crumb even shorter, because they carry more oil. Grind the nuts fine but stop before they turn pasty, and chill the dough 30 minutes longer with walnuts. For a nut-free version replace the nuts with the same weight of flour plus 20 g of cornstarch; the taste is plainer but the texture holds.

In a tin in a cool room they keep 3 to 4 weeks, and they are better on day three than on day one. Store them on their own: next to Zimtsterne or gingerbread they pick up moisture and spice and go soft. The raw dough freezes well for up to 3 months as wrapped logs; thaw it overnight in the fridge and slice as usual. Baked Vanillekipferl can be frozen too, but freeze them without the sugar coating and roll them in fresh vanilla sugar after a few minutes in a 150°C oven.

Vanillekipferl are a butter shortbread: flour, butter, nuts, almost no egg, shaped by hand and coated in vanilla sugar. Zimtsterne are the opposite, a flourless dough of almonds and meringue with a white glaze; Lebkuchen are honey and spice cakes, Spekulatius are thin spiced biscuits pressed in a mould. On a German Advent plate, the Bunter Teller, they sit side by side with a mug of mulled wine. The kipferl is the quickest of them to make and the first to disappear.