Glazed Italian Anise Cookies

Growing up in an Italian family, Christmas Eve is always a time that I look forward to eating delicious food. We always celebrate with lots of seafood, pasta and tons of delicious cookies. Pizzelles are a very traditional, anise flavored cookie to eat around the holidays, but they require a press (kind of like a waffle iron) to make them.

Since we don't have a pizzelle press, we wanted to make a different type of cookie that still featured anise as the main flavor.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 10-13 minutes

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Ingredients (yields 24 cookies)

6 eggs
5 cups of flour
2 cups of confectioners sugar
2 tbs plus 1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 cup butter
4 teaspoons of anise extract
Glaze:
3 3/4 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 cup warm milk
1 teaspoon anise extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Colored sprinkles

Instructions

1. With a mixer, beat eggs on high until frothy, then add to large mixing bowl.2. With mixer and combine flour, sugar and baking powder and mix on low, gradually beat in butter and extract and mixture resembles crumbs.3. Add in beaten eggs to the crumb mixture and Dough should be stiff, if not add a little bit more flour.4. Roll dough into 1 inch balls. Place apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-13 minutes on 350 degrees.5. While cookies are cooling, make glaze: using a small bowl combine glaze ingredients (except sprinkles).6. Dip each cookie in glaze place on parchment paper and top each cookie with colored sprinkles.

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Dave took these cookies to his work's cookie exchange, and I'm a little bit jealous. I wish we had some extra to eat here! The flavor of anise totally brings me back to my childhood, and I'm glad we have this recipe in our cookie arsenal now!

This recipe originated from Cooking With Nonna.