Nut Horn Cookies

Avoid gooey chocolate chip or chewy oatmeal raisin drop cookies for your next holiday cookie tray. Instead, steal the show with these impressive nut horn cookies. The simple dough uses just three ingredients—butter, cream cheese and flour—and wraps around a sweet, nutty filling for an elegant pastry-like effect. While they’re still warm, coat them in granulated sugar for a sparkly finish.

This unsweetened dough is similar to the one used in kolacky cookies and variations from Eastern Europe, Nordic countries and Russia baked for Christmas and other winter holidays. Because these nut horn cookies are rolled like crescent rolls, with little chance to overwork the dough, they stay tender and melt in your mouth with each bite.

For stress-free baking, make the dough ahead of time and leave it in the fridge. Then, give yourself plenty of time to shape each cookie: It’s not tricky, but you don’t want to rush it. Your reward is beautiful walnut-filled cookies that deserve the spotlight.

Nut Horn Cookie Ingredients

• Butter: Properly softened butter makes for easier mixing. To soften butter quickly without causing the oil and fat to separate, cut it into small cubes before you let it sit at room temperature.
• Cream cheese: Cream cheese adds a slight tanginess and pastry-esque lightness to these cookies. As with the butter, cut the block of cream cheese into cubes for speedier softening. Avoid whipped cream cheese, which would turn watery when heated.
• Flour: Stick with all-purpose flour for this recipe, even though the dough doesn’t include baking powder or soda. With these cookies, measuring flour correctly is essential to avoid overly dry or sticky dough.
• Walnuts: Finely ground walnuts spread more evenly across the rolled dough than coarse pieces. The recipe calls for 4 cups, so use a food processor to quickly chop the nuts, stopping before they form a greasy nut butter.
• Sugar: Granulated sugar is used mostly for the filling. The rest is applied to the cookies’ exteriors for an easy yet fancy finishing touch that hits the tongue first, making the crescents taste sweeter than they really are.
• Milk: Milk binds the ground nuts and sugar into a spreadable paste. The nuts provided plenty of richness, so 2% milk creates a workable spread. Whole milk is a fine substitute, but skim milk would be too watery.
• Vanilla extract: Vanilla flavor stands out in these cookies, so use the real stuff, not imitation vanilla, if you can. Either buy pure extract or use this easy technique to make vanilla extract at home.
• Salt: A tiny bit of salt magnifies the nutty sweetness of the filling. Adding it yourself is better than using salted nuts, which would take the saltiness too far.

Directions

Step 1: Mix the dough

Preheat the oven to 325°F. In a large bowl, beat 1 cup butter and the cream cheese until light and fluffy, three to four minutes. Gradually add the flour, beating until the mixture forms a ball.

Step 2: Roll out the dough

Divide the dough into four portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each portion into a 12-inch circle.

Editor’s Tip: The dough might be too sticky to roll easily in a warm kitchen. Instead of heavily flouring your rolling surface, flatten the dough portions into disks, wrap them in parchment and refrigerate them. The dough should be workable in 15 to 30 minutes.

Step 3: Mix and spread the filling

Melt the remaining 1 teaspoon of butter. In a large bowl, combine the walnuts, 3/4 cup sugar, milk, vanilla, salt and melted butter. Spread the nut mixture over the dough circles.

Step 4: Cut and roll

Cut each dough circle into 12 wedges.

Step 5: Shape the horns

Roll up the wedges, starting from the wide ends.

Step 6: Bake the cookies

Place the cookies point side down on greased baking sheets. Curve the ends to form crescents.

Bake until lightly browned, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the cookies to wire racks.

Editor’s Tip: Every oven heats differently, so check these long-baked cookies frequently as they near the end of the cooking time to keep them from becoming overly hard or dark. Another Christmas baking secret is to use flat, shiny baking sheets for consistent color on the tops and bottoms.

Step 7: Coat in sugar

Place the remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a small shallow bowl. Roll the warm cookies in the sugar and cool completely.

Nut Horn Cookie Variations

• Change the nuts: Use buttery pecans or mild almonds instead of walnuts. Combine unsalted cashews, pecans, hazelnuts or macadamia nuts for a mixed-nut variation. There is no need to toast the nuts beforehand; the cookies bake long, so the filling gets nice and toasty.
• Use brown sugar: To add caramelized molasses notes to the filling, substitute dark brown sugar for the granulated sugar in the cookie dough. Stick with granulated sugar for the cookie coating; it will dust the surface more evenly and provide a clear sparkle.
• Add spices: Mix 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon into the filling or the sugar used to coat the baked cookies. Give the filling a touch of allspice or freshly grated nutmeg instead.

How to Store Nut Horn Cookies

Nut horn cookies don’t need to be refrigerated, but they will soften as they sit. To protect the flaky layers, line them up between pieces of parchment and store them in an airtight container. They’ll last up to five days at room temperature. The cookies last longer when cooled completely and stacked carefully.

Can you freeze nut horn cookies?

You can freeze finished nut horn cookies for up to three months. To help them keep their shape, freeze them in a single layer on baking sheets until firm. Then pack them in a freezer-safe container, separating layers of cookies with parchment as you would for room-temperature storage. Seal the container and freeze.

Can you make nut horn cookies ahead of time?

Make the dough and filling for nut horn cookies in advance and store them separately. Flat disks of dough, tightly wrapped in storage wrap and bagged, keep well in the refrigerator for up to three days or in the freezer for about three months. The sweet nut filling lasts in the fridge or freezer for three months. Thaw frozen ingredients overnight in the refrigerator before you work with them. Let them sit at room temperature for about five minutes if they need to soften further.

Nut Horn Cookie Tips

What if the nut filling falls out of the nut horn cookies while they bake?

When you cut and shape the filling-topped dough wedges into nut horn cookies, don’t be surprised if some filling falls out. Simply tuck it back in as you roll the wedges or return it to the filling bowl for the next dough circle. The nuts might also leak onto the greased baking sheets as the cookies bake. To capture the rich filling, line the baking sheets with parchment instead. Any filling that runs out will caramelize deliciously around the dough and release with the cookies when you lift them from the parchment.

How do you keep nut horn cookies from unrolling?

The points of nut horn cookies have a buttery coating, so you won’t be able to pinch and seal them like folded kolacky cookies. As you roll up each wedge, press down gently to help the layers stick together without pressing out the filling. When you transfer a cookie to a baking sheet, tuck the point underneath, against the metal, pressing down lightly to keep it from turning over. Chilling the dough makes it easier to roll and cut, but leave the shaped crescents at room temperature until they are put in the oven. The butter in chilled cookies will solidify, causing the cookies to puff more and perhaps unroll in the oven.