INGREDIENTS:
¾ cup butter, softened
½ cup white custard or icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1 ½ vanilla beans, divided
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup ground almonds very finely
2 cups confectioners’ sugar for rolling after baking.
DIRECTION:
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 (about 1 hours).Preheat oven to 350 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/5cm 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 (the rest of empty pod can be used in jar of your sugar for fragrance). Carefully roll warm cookies in the vanilla sugar. Original recipe makes 80 half-moons.
Notes: Great Czech, Slovak recipe. It is very popular at homes during Christmas baking time.