Published November 1, 1998.
For a nut crescent cookie recipe with a melt-in-your-mouth quality, we tried three kinds of sugar in the batter: granulated, confectioners', and superfine. The last resulted in just what we wanted: cookies that melted in our mouths. In determining the amount (a modest 1/3 cup), we had to remember that the baked cookies would be sweetened once more by their traditional roll in confectioners' sugar. While some nut crescent cookie recipes argue in favor of coating the cookies while they're still warm from the oven, we found that this created exactly the pasty coating we wanted to avoid. We recommend letting the cookies cool to room temperature before finishing them off with confectioners' sugar.
Choosing almonds for your cookies automatically presents you with a choice: Whether to use them raw for traditional almond crescent cookies that are light in both color and flavor, or to toast them to enhance the almond flavor and darken the crescent. Toast hazelnuts and almonds in a preheated 350 degree oven until very lightly browned, stirring twice during baking, 12 to 14 minutes. You can buy superfine sugar in most grocery stores. You can also process regular granulated sugar to superfine consistency in about 30 seconds in the workbowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade.
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