Mom’s Christmas Crescent Cookies

Updated: Dec 15th, 2023 · By Bethany Kramer
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Learn how to make melt-in-your-mouth Italian Christmas crescent cookies! Made with simple ingredients like butter, flour, and vanilla, and dusted with sweet powdered sugar. The perfect holiday cookie that everyone will love!

A stack of white Christmas crescent cookies on a plate with powder sugar being dusted over top.

Make the holidays complete with these delicious Italian crescent cookies! They’re simple butter cookies shaped into a crescent moon. To make them you’ll only need 5 ingredients plus powdered sugar for dusting over top.

These cookies are famous in our house! My mom makes them for everyone around the holidays and let me tell you, it’s a recipe everyone loves. The texture is light and crisp, but they melt in your mouth.

We love serving these after our Christmas dinner, but they’re perfect for gifting too!

Ingredients – What You Need

Below you’ll find the full list of ingredients you’ll need to make this recipe.

Ingredients for crescent cookies arranged on a wooden background.

Flour: for this recipe, I used all-purpose baking flour.
Butter: cold butter for crisp texture! If you prefer dairy-free you can use vegan butter instead.
Vanilla extract: to add flavor!
Cinnamon: for some warm spice flavors!
Sugar: just a touch of white sugar is used in the cookie batter.
Powdered sugar: for sweetness! This will be dusted over the top of the finished cookies at the end.

How to Make Christmas Crescent Cookies

This recipe can be made in either a bowl with a hand mixer or a food processor!

(1) Add the ingredients to a food processor or bowl! Add the flour, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and cubed butter into your food processor or bowl.

(2) Blend until dough forms – Then pulse the food processor or mix the hand-mixer on high until the ingredients form a dough.

(3) Make small dough logs – then separate the dough into 2 dough “logs” and then slice into 1-inch thick pieces for the cookies.

(4) Form the cookie – Then the palm of your hands to roll the dough pieces into 3-inch pieces.

(5) Make the crescent – Then use your fingers to slightly bend the dough into a crescent shape. Lay cookies on a sheet lined with parchment paper and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Bake! Then bake the cookies at 350F for 9 minutes, then flip the pan and bake an additional 9 minutes. Let the cookies completely cool before dusting with powdered sugar.

Tips for Success

Work quickly and don’t handle the dough too much – to keep the butter from getting too warm, I recommend working as quickly as possible with your hands. If you work too much with the dough it will start to crack and become too soft. If the cookies get too soft, they will melt in the oven – which we don’t want.

Don’t skip chilling the cookies! – This is a must for these cookies. The butter that’s in the cookie dough needs to stay cold for the cookie to hold its shape and not melt. So, don’t skip chilling the cookies before baking!

Chill the dough if it gets too difficult to work with – if you find that the cookies keep cracking while trying to form them or you feel like the dough is too warm to work with, chill the dough in the fridge for 5-8 minutes, then try again.

Make prep easy and use a food processor – This recipe can be made in either a bowl with a hand mixer or, as my mom loves to do it, in a food processor. Just add the ingredients and blend until the dough forms! Super easy and quick.

Make it gluten-free! To make this recipe gluten-free friendly, I recommend using a 1 to 1 gluten-free flour blend instead of all-purpose flour.

Tips for Storing & Freezing

Keep leftover cookies fresh – the best way to store these cookies is an airtight container or ziplock bag. These cookies should stay fresh for a week!

Freeze the dough – the cookies aren’t the best for freezing as a whole, but you can freeze the dough by wrapping it in plastic wrap and placing it in a freezer-friendly bag for up to 2 months.

White crescent cookies arranged on a gray plate with parchment paper behind it and crescent cookies arranged around the plate.

More Christmas Cookies to Try

Cherry Chocolate Dipped Biscotti
Oatmeal Molasses Cookies
Brownie Oat Flour Cookies

Mom’s Christmas Crescent Cookies

Learn how to make melt-in-your-mouth Italian Christmas crescent cookies! Made with simple ingredients like butter, flour, and vanilla, and dusted with sweet powdered sugar. The perfect holiday cookie that everyone will love!
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 18 minutes
Total Time 48 minutes
Serves 16 cookies

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350F.
  • Mix the ingredients: In a food processor or mixing bowl with a hand-mixer, add the flour, cubed cold butter, vanilla, cinnamon, and white sugar. Pulse in a food processor until the dough forms or use a hand-mixer until the dough forms.
  • Form into logs: then quickly separate the dough into two parts and form 6×2 inch logs. Then slice them into one inch pieces.
  • Shape the crescents: Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Then use the cut pieces of dough to form each cookie. Roll the dough first between your palms into a 3-inch piece then use your fingers to shape it into a crescent. Repeat process until all the cookies are made and arrange cookies on sheet pan.
  • Chill cookies: Then pop the pan with the raw cookies on it into the fridge to chill for 10-15 minutes. This will help the butter harden again so the cookies will hold their shape when they bake!
  • Bake: Then bake the chilled cookies in the oven for 9 minutes, then turn the pan and bake an additional 9 minutes.
  • Dust with powdered sugar: when the cookies have completely cooled use a fine mesh strainer to dust the powdered sugar over top. Then serve!

Notes

Work quickly and don’t handle the dough too much – to keep the butter from getting too warm, I recommend working as quickly as possible with your hands. If you work too much with the dough it will start to crack and become too soft. If the cookies get too soft, they will melt in the oven – which we don’t want. 🙂
Don’t skip chilling the cookies! – This is a must for these cookies. The butter that’s in the cookie dough needs to stay cold in order for the cookie to hold its shape and not melt. So, don’t skip chilling the cookies before baking!
Chill the dough if it gets too difficult to work with – if you find that the cookies keep cracking while trying to form them or you feel like the dough is too warm to work with, chill the dough in the fridge for 5-8 minutes then try again.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, Italian
Keyword christmas crescent cookies, crescent cookies, Italian crescent cookies
Freezer Friendly Yes

Nutrition

Serving: 1cookie | Calories: 150kcal | Carbohydrates: 10.6g | Protein: 0.4g | Fat: 11.6g | Cholesterol: 30.6mg | Sugar: 4.6g

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