Last year a friend of mine told me that if I wanted some real challenge in my Plätzchen baking, I should try Anisplätzchen - they are almost impossible to bake right, even if you're a professional baker; whether they succeed or not depends namely on the humidity of air, among other things.The seed of this challenge got planted in my brain, but I don't feel up to it just now. Maybe next year...!
But I wanted to try something with aniseed, and luckily there is a variety of other Christmas cookies that feature this little liquorice-tasting seed!
This seemed an easy recipe, and it was. The only tricky part is when you take the cookies out of the oven: you have to be really quick to stretch them over a spoon to get the right shape. They are elastic only about 1-2 minutes once they're out, after that they harden and can't be shaped any more.
For about 35 cookies you need:
- 2 eggs
- 120g sugar
- 1 tsp ground aniseed
- 60g all-purpose flour
- a pinch of salt
- entire aniseed seeds to decorate
Preheat the oven to 200C. Combine eggs, sugar and ground aniseed in a baking bowl. Beat until the mixture is creamy and fluffy. Then add sifted flour (in which you've added the salt) and stir until well combined. Place small drops of about one teaspoon on a baking tray, covered with parchment paper, and bake in the oven about 7 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown in the middle and a bit darker from the sides.
While the cookies are baking, take out as many tablespoons as you have cookies in the oven. Once you take the cookies out, you need to be fast: with each spoon, take one cookie from the baking tray (be careful, don't burn your fingers!) and stretch in on the outside of the spoon. Place on another tray and let cool completely. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.
Enjoy with a glass of mulled wine, for example!
P.S. As you can see in this picture, I also baked some rum raisin cookies today.... They are my son's all-time favourite cookies!
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