Almond Half Moons Food

VANILLA HALF-MOONS

Steps:

• In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time. Split the half of vanilla bean and scrape the seeds; stir the seeds into the butter mixture. Mix in the flour and ground almonds. Divide the dough into two pieces, wrap and refrigerate until firm.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Break off tablespoonful sized pieces of dough and roll them into little ropes about 2 inches long. Bend the ropes into a half circle and place them 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.
• Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until lightly browned. Scrape the seeds from the remaining vanilla bean and stir them into the confectioners' sugar. Carefully roll warm cookies in the vanilla sugar.

THE "ORIGINAL HALF MOON COOKIES"

Steps:

• Cream together shortening and sugar and then add beaten egg and vanilla.
• sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg.
• add alternately mixture of sifted flour ingreidents and the soured milk to the creamed shortening mixture batter should be thick drop by tablespoons (one on top of the other to give it height one unlevel on bottom one level on top) onto cookie trays bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes until lightly brown on bottoms.
• cool completely and frost one side with pure white frosting and the other with dark chocolate frosting you can make your own or used canned.
• If the batter comes out soupy or sticky I add additional flour

HALF MOON COOKIES (WHITE)

Steps:

• Cream butter, shortening and sugars together.You can use all butter, or all shortening if you prefer, but the texture and shape will come out a little different.
• Mix in eggs and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
• Combine in dry ingredients and sour milk, alternating until mixed well.
• Drop from Tablespoons onto greased cookie sheet (About 1/8 cup is the right size) Your cookie sheet should not be warped, or else your cookies won't come out nice and round. Allow plenty of room for the cookies to spread. Start with 4 cookies to a sheet and then see if you can increase to fitting 6 cookies.
• Bake at 375 F for 12-15 minutes.
• Frost the BOTTOM of the cookies. Half with white frosting, half with chocolate frosting with frosting recipe #188454.

ALMOND HALF-MOONS

Steps:

• In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter or margarine with an electric mixer on medium high speed for 30 seconds. Add the sugar; beat till combined. Beat in the egg and almond extract.
• Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour and the ground nuts with a wooden spoon. Do not chill dough.
• Pack dough into a cookie press fitted with a 1/2 -inch wide round or star tip. Force dough through the cookie press 1-inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets forming crescent shapes.
• Bake in a preheated 375F oven for 6-8 minutes, or till edges are firm and bottoms are lightly browned. Remove cookies from pans and cool on a rack. Sprinkle cookies with powdered sugar.