A sweet treat that Germans like to grab at the bakery, is Almond Crescents or Almond Horns. Mandelhörnchen – that’s their German name – are pure bliss and happen to be even gluten-free. I could describe them as Chocolate-Dipped Marzipan Almond Horns, how does that sound to you?
These sweet almond horns have been one of my pregnancy cravings and I had no shame to send my husband out at the most inconvenient times to go and get me some. He braved it while I craved it! But one doesn’t have to be pregnant to fall in love with this treat. It goes wonderful with a cup of coffee or latte. As we have the coffee time as an additional meal during the day around 3 pm, there is usually some cake or cookies with that. Almond Horns often are replacing the cake, especially if we have our coffee time at the office.
Video Instructions For Almond Crescents
Easy to Make
There is not special or complicated technic to make this. The ingredients are thrown into the bowl together and mixed within 2 minutes. The only tricky part is the stickyness of the dough. But if you wet your fingers with some water, it will be possible to work with it.
Soft and Sweet
The Almond Horns are not crisp as some might think. Instead, they are soft and a little gooey. But if you prefer them to be a little crisper, just bake them a few more minutes.
The sweetness is no surprise since they are mostly made from marzipan (learn here how to make it) and powdered sugar.
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Almond Horns / Almond Crescents / Mandelhörnchen
Ingredients
- 200 g marzipan
- 100 g almond meal or almond flour
- 1 egg white for the dough
- 100 g confectioners sugar (= powdered sugar)
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1 egg white for dipping
- 100 g sliced almonds
- 180 g dark chocolate (more or less)
Instructions
- Put the marzipan, almond flour, confectioners sugar, egg white and lemon juice into a bowl and mix it all together.
- With wet fingers, shape 6 Crescents from the dough.
- Dip each crescent first into the egg white and then turn it in the almond slices until it's well covered.
- Set on a baking sheet.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F and bake the almond crescents for 10 to 15 minutes or a little longer if you want them more crisp.
- Let them cool and in the meantime, melt the chocolate in a bowl over hot water.
- Once the almond horns have cooled completely, dip the ends of the horns into the chocolate.
- Let the chocolate set and then enjoy our wonderful treat!
A true favorite. My first choice at any konditorei. Surprisingly easy.
Trudy, thank you the tips, but there is NO butter in her recipe.
The only liquids listed are 1 egg white and a little lemon juice.
So maybe the other people who had flattened cookies added too much lemon juice or there was too much egg white.
I made this recipe of the Almond Crescents this afternoon as part of my Christmas cookie selection. What a wonderful sweet treat! They turned out beautifully. I even made my own marzipan with your recipe. There is no end to what I can make with that. Thank you so much for sharing. This recipe will go into my Christmas baking for years to come. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas to you, too!
My batch flattened out too much. Very sticky. Would chilling the dough overnight help? Otherwise, something seems to be missing from the ingredients?
Hi Mark,
I just double-checked and the ingredients are correct, nothing is missing. Did you watch the video? Is any of your ingredients different from what I am using there? The Almond crescents do get larger in the oven but I understand that yours were spreading and turned out flat, that shouldn’t be the case. I’m not sure what happened there.
Are these supposed to spread when baking? Ours went all over the pan! Otherwise they were AMAZING. Taste like my childhood.
They definitely increase in size during baking, I would say about 1/3.
I make Vanille Kipferln (ALMOND crescents)often. It’s the amount of butter that you’re using that makes the cookies spread out too much. Keep in mind that not all flour is the same. Try to increase the flour to butter ratio a bit, and after forming the crescents and placing them on the cookie sheet, place the sheet in the fridge for 10 minutes, before baking them.
To prevent the crescents from breaking after the baking process, leave them on the sheet while applying the vanilla-using sugar, until cooled.
Hope this helps.