Snowy Butter Crescents

This is our number one Christmas cookie. The recipe has to be over 65 years old. That's how long it's been in our family. Where it was before that, I don't know. But we have made these cookies just about that long. The cookie is similar to Mexican Wedding Cookies or Russian Tea Cakes, but IMHO is the best of its kind! It is so short is just shatters in your mouth and melts away. Do try it! Time for chilling the formed cookies is not included in the timing.

• Ready In: 40 mins
• Yields: 36-42 cookies

Ingredients

• 1  cup butter, room temperature
• 2  cups cake flour
• 10  tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
• 1  cup  chopped pecans
• 1  tablespoon water
• 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla
•  additional powdered sugar, for coating cookie

Directions

1. Cream butter until consistency of whipped cream. Gradually work in sifted dry ingredients including nuts. Add vanilla and water (using more water if necessary) and mix to combine. Shape dough into crescents. (Dough may be easier to handle if it is chilled 15-20 minutes before shaping.) Place crescents on cooky sheets, spacing them 2 inches apart, and chill thoroughly. This step prevents the cookies from spreading too much.
2. Before removing from refrigerator, preheat oven to 400 degrees F. It is important for the oven to reach this temperature before putting in the cookies, again to prevent excessive spreading. Bake cookies until delicately browned at the edges, about 8-10 minutes. Watch carefully. While still hot, roll cookies in additional powdered sugar.
3. NOTE: Because the crescents are so very fragile, we lost a number of them to breakage. (Those were OURS!) We began forming the dough into balls which were far less fragile so we didn't have to make as many batches.