I had the TV tuned to the Food Network this week while performing Stage One of putting up my Christmas tree: spreading out the "pine needles" and sliding the branches into their little slots in the pole of my very real-looking fake tree. They've got all of these holiday related programs on and I turned my attention to it in time to see Warren Brown, host of Sugar Rush and his sister, Lenora, talking about these cookies, saying that they made these in their family for the Christmas holiday. My baking-sense tingled, "family recipe" = more delicious than average, possibly outstanding. Warren held up cookie cutters, since these are cut-out cookies, that they used when they were kids and a little bell cookie cutter caught my eye because it was exactly the same as one I used as a kid.

Now that they had my attention, I watched as they showed the simple, 6 ingredients to that go into these cookies and I mentally asked myself as each one passed by if I had it. The only thing I wasn't sure about was the sliced almonds. A quick trip to my baking pantry confirmed that indeed I did have it. Since they didn't mention the amounts and oh, by the way, I didn't bother writing anything down, I hopped online over to the Food TV website and since the program was still on, right on their homepage were links to the recipes. Ah, I love technology.

Viennese Vanilla Cookies
From Lenora Brown via Food Network Website

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1 1/4 cups shaved Almonds (not the slivered almonds, but the flat cuts with bits of brown on them)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

• Cream butter and add sugar.
• Mix flour and salt together.
• Add 1/2 cup of flour mixture at a time, mixing after each addition, until it is all incorporated.
• Add the vanilla and the shaved almonds and mix to incorporate.
• Shape into a disk wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350°F.
  
• Roll the dough the dough so that it is about 1/4-inch thick or a little more.
  
• Cut with cookie cutters.
  
• Place dough on parchment paper or greased cookie sheet.
• Bake for 12 to 13 minutes or until the edges are a bit brown. You may need to lower your oven to 325°F.

About this recipe: I modified the instructions a bit. The biggest change is mixing the salt in with the flour. The original recipe tells you to add the salt at the end when you add the vanilla and almonds. I felt like this wouldn't allow it to incorporate evenly since it's basically a dough at that point.

The dough that develops has a very nice consistency. It's not so dry that you're wondering whether or not it will come together, nor is it too wet. This is definitely an electric mixer type recipe unless, of course, you're working on building muscle.

Rolling out the dough on a moderately floured surface was nice and easy given that the dough isn't completely cold. If you decide to leave your dough in the fridge over night, let it sit out and warm up a bit before trying to roll it out. I rolled my dough out to a generous 1/4 of an inch. Judging by what I saw on TV and what they said, you don't want them to be too thin. When I pressed the cookie cutter into the dough I got a pleasant crunching sound as it cut through the sliced almonds. You need to press firmly to get through them, but it's not too difficult. Oh, I got to take out my very large collection of cookie cutters and for this batch I used the following: a mitten, star, ornament, Christmas tree light bulb, snowflake, sled, Christmas tree, and my personal favorite, elf, complete with pointy ears and toe-curled shoes.

The baking time, in what I find to be a rare case, was right on. I baked my sheet of cookies for exactly 12 minutes and they were just a little golden around the edges. Careful when moving these to a cooling rack. Because of the almonds, I found that they break easily when they're still warm. A couple of elves lost their heads.

The results: day of I thought these cookies, while good, were too salty. After a few days, the saltiness seemed to mellow out, leaving a buttery cookie with a great crunchy texture thanks to the slivered almonds. I would make these again, but I would cut the salt to 1/4 teaspoon and I would either replace the vanilla or add in addition to it, 1 teaspoon of almond extract. I felt these cookies needed a little more pizazz to make them really extraordinary. Right now, were I to equate a letter grad to their overall goodness, they'd get a solid 'B'.