Ingredients: |
Ingredients: Ingredients
For the dough:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
1/4 cup milk (I used 2%, use your preferred)
2 tsp anise extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, start at 3 [see instructions]
1 tbsp baking powder
For the glaze:
2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tbsp water
1/4 tsp anise extract
Sprinkles for decoration
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Directions: |
Directions:Instructions
For the cookies:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Cream butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl for a few minutes until smooth and creamy.
Add the eggs and beat well using a hand or stand mixer, until the mixture is light and looks frothy.
Add milk, anise extract, and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
Add 3 cups of flour and baking powder to a separate bowl and whisk until evenly combined.
In 2-3 increments, add flour mixture to the bowl with the wet ingredients, mixing in until just combined.
Add additional flour as needed, 1 tbsp at a time, until you can roll a cookie's worth of dough between your palms with minimal sticking. I added 1/4 cup (4 tbsp) during this time, bringing the total flour used to 3 1/4 cup. The amount of flour you need may vary.
Using a 1 1/2-tbsp cookie scoop, scoop balls of dough and roll between your palms to form spheres. Some of the dough will stick inside the scoop but that's okay. Place dough balls equally-spaced on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between one another.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until cookies are very lightly brown on the bottom. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.
For the glaze:
Once cookies have cooled completely, whisk together 2 cups confectioners' sugar, 3 tbsp water, and 1/4 tsp anise extract. Dip the tops of each anise cookie into the glaze, and then sprinkle nonpareils over top. Let glaze harden completely before storing. |
Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: These Italian anisette cookies can be made several days ahead of time. If doing so, I suggest baking the cookies and then NOT glazing them until the day you would like to serve them. Reason being is that the next day and the days beyond, the colors of the rainbow nonpareils bleed onto the white glaze and don’t look quite as picture perfect as they day they were glazed and decorated. Of course if you don’t really care about that feel free to glaze ’em up right away, or you can omit the sprinkles or use white nonpareils instead.
Enjoy from our family to yours!
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This recipe for Anisette Christmas cookies is from