German Twists

Directions

1. Sprinkle yeast over warm water in a bowl and let activate while you complete remaining steps.
2. Place flour and salt into a food processor and pulse once or twice to combine. Scatter butter slices over flour and process until butter is thoroughly mixed into the flour, about 1 minute.
3. Whisk yeast mixture, sour cream, egg, egg yolks, and vanilla extract together in a bowl; pour mixture into food processor. Pulse several times, just until the dough starts to hold together and clean the sides of the bowl (do not overmix). Remove dough from food processor and divide in half; form each half into a thick disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least 2 hours. For best texture, refrigerate overnight.
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Sprinkle a work surface generously with sugar and roll out one of the dough disks into an 8x16-inch rectangle. Sprinkle dough with a generous amount of sugar. Fold the dough over in thirds, letter-style, and roll out again; fold as before and roll out and fold a third time, sprinkling dough with sugar each time. Finally, roll dough into a 4x14-inch rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick. Repeat process with second dough disk.
6. Cut strips from the short side of the dough rectangles, making them 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide. Place strips onto the parchment-lined baking sheets, twisting and slightly stretching them. If preferred, form into horseshoe shapes.
7. Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cookies will puff up a bit to reveal delicate layers. Let cookies cool for about 5 minutes on sheets before transferring to wire cooling racks.

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Reviews (6)

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14

Lakelady

Sep. 20, 2012

"Sounds great, but I have a tip. When you are going to roll dough into a rectangle, don't shape it into a disk shape, make it a small rectangle before you wrap it to chill. Why start with a shape that ..." See morewill not roll easily into the desired finished shape? Makes it SO much easier."

6

VJGUNKEL59

Nov. 8, 2012

"We like this recipe. It was very easy to put together and I did refrigerate it overnight as the recipe called for. The twists were tender and delicious, not too sweet. It really didn't puff up all ..." See morethat much for a yeast cookie, but maybe that was because this recipe called for no raising of the dough-just put it right in the oven. tip; we used a ruler and a pizza cutter to cut the strips into even 1 inch wide strips and it worked well to keep them a consistent size for even baking. Thank you for a great recipe-we plan to make it again for the holidays."

5

raemmons

Oct. 3, 2012

"These have been a Christmas tradition in our family for three generations. We love to eat them while opening presents Christmas morning. We call them Angel Twists. We make vanilla sugar to use when ro..." See morelling them out. Instead of my food processor, I use the dough hook on my mixer. I have also mixed these by hand. Works no matter which method I use."