These popular crescent-shaped cookies can be filled with anything from raspberry jam to cinnamon and sugar or chocolate and nuts.
Ingredients
For the Cream Cheese and Sour Cream Dough:
2 1/4cupsall-purpose flour
1 1/2tablespoonsgranulated sugar
1/4teaspoonsalt
1/2poundunsalted butter, 2 sticks, chilled and cut into 1/4-inch pieces
8ouncescream cheese, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
2tablespoonssour cream
For the Chocolate Walnut Filling:
1cupgranulated sugar
1tablespoonground cinnamon
1cupsemisweet chocolate minichips
2 1/4cupswalnuts, chopped very fine
For the Egg Yolk -and- Milk Glaze:
2large egg yolks
2tablespoonsmilk
Instructions
In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, pulse flour, sugar, and salt. Scatter the butter and cream cheese pieces over the flour mixture. Add the sour cream and pulse until dough comes together in small, uneven pebbles the size of cottage cheese curds, about sixteen 1-second pulses. Turn mixture onto a work surface and press into 9-inch-by-6-inch log, divide log into four equal portions. Press each quarter into a round, flat disk about 4 1/2 inches in diameter. Place each disk between two pieces of plastic wrap and roll it into an 8 1/2-inch disk. Leave in the plastic wrap and stack on top of each other on a large plate; freeze 30 minutes (or up to 1 month if stored in zipper-lock freezer bag).
Mix sugar and cinnamon in small bowl; set aside.
Working with one dough round, remove from freezer and spread 1/4 cup minichips, 2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar, and 1/2 cup walnuts, in that order, over dough; pat down gently with fingers. Cut dough round into eight wedges. Roll each wedge into crescent shape and place at 2-inch intervals on parchment paper-lined heavy rimmed baking pans. Freeze crescents at least 15 minutes. (Frozen crescents, if well-wrapped, can be frozen in a zipper-lock bag up to 6 weeks.) Repeat with remaining dough rounds.
Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Whisk egg yolks and milk in small bowl until smooth. Brush top and sides of frozen crescents with egg-milk mixture. Bake crescents, turning baking pans from front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking time, until pale gold and slightly puffy, 21 to 23 minutes. Immediately sprinkle each cookie with a teaspoon cinnamon sugar; using thin-bladed spatula carefully transfer hot, fragile cookies to cooling rack.