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Crescents
½ lb. almond paste 2 ozs. confectioners' sugar White 1 small egg Almonds, blanched and finely chopped Mix same as Macaroons. Shape mixture, which is quite soft, in a long roll. Cut pieces from roll three-fourths inch , in a long roll. Cut pieces from roll three-fourths inch long. Roll each separately in chopped nuts, at the same time shaping to form a crescent. Bake twenty minutes on a buttered tin sheet in a slow oven. Cool, and frost with Confectioners' Frosting, made thin enough to apply with a brush, and flavored with lemon juice until quite acid. Other nuts may be used in place of almonds.
A marzipan cookie built on the same base as Fannie Farmer's almond macaroons, with the ingredient list given in weights rather than cups. The whole recipe hinges on getting the paste smooth before you shape it.
- Work the paste smooth first"Mix same as Macaroons" means kneading the almond paste with the sugar, then adding the egg white a little at a time until the mass is uniform and just soft enough to roll. Lumps of unbroken paste will not disperse later and show up as hard spots in the baked crescent.
- Slow ovenThe book gives no temperature; in period usage a slow oven is roughly 250-325F, and something near the middle of that suits these. They are almond-paste confections rather than cakes; the point is to set and lightly dry them without browning. In too hot an oven the outside colors before the center sets.
- Weights to volumeHalf a pound of almond paste is a scant cup, packed. Two ounces of confectioners' sugar is about half a cup, sifted. The white of one small egg is a tablespoon and a half or so, and it may be more than you need.
- Almond paste is not marzipanAlmond paste is roughly half almonds by weight and only lightly sweetened; marzipan carries far more sugar and is meant for modeling. Substituting marzipan gives a cloying, slack dough that spreads on the sheet.
- The garbled lineThe text repeats itself in the original setting. The instruction is simply to roll the mixture into a long rope and cut it into three-quarter-inch lengths, each of which is then rolled in chopped nuts and bent into a crescent.
- Buttered tin sheetButter alone on a bare sheet is marginal for a sugar-heavy dough. Parchment on a heavy sheet is the reliable modern equivalent, and it also keeps the thin bottoms from over-drying.
- The frostingConfectioners' frosting here is sugar thinned with water or milk, brushed on rather than spread. Farmer's direction to add lemon juice "until quite acid" is deliberate: the glaze has to cut a very sweet almond cookie, so go further with the lemon than instinct suggests.
- YieldThe original gives none; expect roughly two to three dozen small crescents, depending on how thick the rope is rolled. They keep for several days in a tin once the glaze has dried.
Almond-paste crescents belong to the family of European bakery confections, and this recipe assumes the reader already owns almond paste, with quantities given in ounces and pounds rather than cups. The crescent shape is generally traced to Viennese and wider Central European baking, where Kipferl in various doughs are long established; the story tying the shape to the Ottoman siege of Vienna is repeated everywhere but is not documented.