Food bloggers here in Germany and my newsfeed on Facebook have apparently gone crazy over the so-called „Traumstücke“, which I’ve loosely translated into „Little Pieces of Heaven“. It’s basically the dough used for Kipferle, a popular cookie made out of almond meal in the shape of a croissant and covered in vanilla powder sugar. Back in the day when I still ate gluten, I was a Kipferle-baking star. My Kipferle were small, pretty and would effortlessly fall apart in your mouth. Given the issues with gluten-free doughs, I’ve been a bit weary about translating my grandmother’s recipe into a gluten-free version, particularly fearing the part of forming the tiny half-moons. And I refuse to place my dough into a Kipferle-tin with a spatula. It’s just not the same. When I saw the recipe for Traumstücke, I had found the solution: make the same dough, but do something different with it.

Ingredients:
400g gluten-free flour mix
100g almond meal
250g butter (or margarine, for a vegan option)
4 egg yolks (or egg replacement, for a vegan option)
130g sugar
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp gluten-free agent mix (xanthan gum, carob and arrowroot flours, etc.)
2 tsp vanilla aroma
powdered sugar (for decoration)

Sift the gluten-free flour-mix into a bowl and take out three heaped tablespoons and place it into a bowl. Add the almond meal, the sugar and cut the butter into pieces and place them on top of the flour.  Add the egg yolks, the salt and the vanilla aroma and knead the ingredients into a smooth dough. Roll into a ball, cover with plastic foil and place into your refrigerator for 45 minutes. Heat your oven to 180° C.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator, cut out about 1/3 of the dough. Spread one tablespoon of flour that you saved earlier and spread it evenly on the counter. Roll out 1/3 of the dough into a long snake, about one inch thick. Cut the dough into even pieces and place on a baking tin lined with a baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough until the baking sheet is filled completely. Place into the oven and bake until golden brown, approximately 20 minutes (depending on your oven, the baking time may be less).

Let the cookies cool completely.

Spread powdered sugar into a soup plate and toss a cookie in the powdered sugar, until completely covered. Repeat with all other cookies. Voila!