Hi everyone, it’s Faith from Thought 4 Food! This month Brandy and I are very excited for Christmas! I’m sure everyone has tons of fantastic holiday recipes…whether your recipes are for cookies, candy, appetizers, side dishes, casseroles, main dishes, or beverages, you can share anything that says Christmas to you. Remember, you can submit as many recipes as you want, and there will be a fantastic prize, which will be announced later this month!
Here’s the timeline that Brandy and I planned for Christmas:
11/29: Faith posts announcement and holiday recipe
12/6: Brandy posts holiday recipe
12/13: Brandy posts holiday recipe
12/19: Faith posts holiday recipe and opens up MckLinky for submissions
12/20: MckLinky closes and submissions are due at 9PM EST
12/21: Recipe round-up posted along with winner
Brandy and I will be making holiday recipes throughout month, so be sure to check out our other blogs for more holiday inspiration!
Onto my great grandmother’s Anise Drop Cookies! Recently, my mom and I were talking about Jingles, the anise-flavored Christmas cookies that Salerno used to make. (You know, those delicious buttery-tasting, anise-flavored, crisp, almost biscuit-like cookies are still made by Salerno, but they’re now known as Santa’s Favorites…but of course, they’ll always be Jingles to us! Keebler now makes the actual Jingles, but they don’t compare to Salerno’s version as far as the spicy anise flavor goes.) During Christmastime, these cookies accompany every tea time I enjoy with my mom and my sister, since these cookies are absolutely perfect alongside a festive cup of peppermint, eggnog (sounds strange I know, but it’s soooo good!), or vanilla tea.
I was telling my mom that I wanted to make homemade anise-flavored cookies, but I was in need of a good recipe. My mom pulled out her family cookbook, dusted it off, and shared her grandmother’s recipe for Anise Drop Cookies. (I was immediately intrigued since I love heirloom recipes!) My mom said that her grandmother (whose name was Genevieve, but everyone called her Nannie) always made these cookies around Christmas.
After making these cookies, I have to say they look exactly like a gorgeous French Macaron, but their flavor reminds me a great deal of Pfeffernüsse cookies. Pfeffernüsse means “pepper nuts” in German, and it seems like there are an infinite number of variations on this recipe! True to its name, many Pfeffernüsse recipes include pepper (either black or white) and ground nuts (such as almonds or walnuts). Many variations of this recipe call for dusting the still-warm cookies with powdered sugar. Some recipes use cinnamon and cloves instead of anise to flavor the cookies.
The variations don’t end with the ingredients though; the methods can also differ greatly. Some recipes call for rolling the dough into balls; other recipes require forming the dough into a log and chilling; still other recipes require that the dough be left out on baking sheets to harden overnight (which is similar to my great-grandmother’s recipe). (For more information on Pfeffernüsse, see here.)
Knowing how many Pfeffernüsse recipe variations there are, it’s possible that this recipe is another variation under a different name. Or maybe, even though these cookies call for all-purpose flour rather than almond flour, they could be considered similar to anise-flavored Macarons? Make them and tell me what you think! 😉
These cookies rise nicely after baking and come out with a perfect “foot,” just like Macarons. They have a hard, crunchy top and a chewy, soft interior. Their anise-lemon flavor pairs perfectly with tea.
Anise Drop Cookies
(Yield: 12 cookies)
1 egg
½ c sugar
2 drops anise oil
½ c flour
1 tsp anise seed
¾ tsp lemon zest
Pinch salt
Butter, to liberally grease the baking sheet
Cream together the egg, sugar, and anise oil until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, anise seed, lemon zest, and salt. Beat the dry ingredients into the wet (the dough will be thin, almost like cake batter). Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet, 1-inch apart. Let stand 12 hours or overnight (dough will harden). Bake at 300F for 20-25 minutes until the cookies are puffed and look like mushroom caps, and the bottoms are lightly golden.
Whole Anise Seeds
All Through the Year Cheer... 
Wow these look just like macarons! I love their little feet 🙂 I think it’s funny that you are talking about pfeffernüsse because that is exactly what I have been wanting to make. I bought some when I was in Germany and they were so delicious…yum!
ooo these look good! could you please clarify something for me — where is the cookie sheet full of dough left overnight? in the fridge? (this is my assumption since there’s egg in it, but when making recipes for the first time, i always feel more comfortable with everything being spelled out for me!!)
thanks in advance.
Janene – That’s a great question! I assumed the same thing the first time I read the recipe…I asked my mom and she said she wasn’t sure since she’s never made them. Unfortunately my great grandmother passed away so there’s no real way to know (unless there’s someone else out there with a similar recipe…help please! 😉 ). I think the reason that the recipe calls for the dough to be left out is so that it can harden on the outside and create a kind of shell, which allows it to form the lovely “foot” when it’s baked. When I made these cookies, I left them out at room temperature for the full 12 hours and they came out great. I hope this helps!
Yes, Nannie Genevieve always left them right out on the kitchen counter. If you refrigerate them, they won’t rise properly.
Thanks Aunt Gretchen! 🙂
The cookies need to be in a cool place, but not the refrigerator. It’s too moist and the tops of the cookies won’t harden. I usually put my pans of Anise Drops in a cold oven; I have cats and that’s about the only place they can’t disturb the cookies!
I make Anise Drops every year and after a lot of years and countless attempts, I make the cookies as follows:
Leave the eggs out at room temperature for several hours, at least three.
Beat the eggs and sugar for 20 minutes.
Drop the batter by spoonsfull on to a greased, floured cookie sheet(s) and let stand overnight, again, at room temperature for approximately 8 hours.
Note: I have been making the Anise Drops according to the above for many years and we have never become sick or poisoned.
Every Christmas my German grandparents would make Pfeffernüsse! Anise smells like Christmas to me. What beautiful cookies!
I thought those were macarons too! Too bad I’m the only anise/licorice lover in my circle, because I’d love to have an occasion to make these.
[…] please check out this months All Through The Year Cheer December Challenge. How exciting is it that Christmas is less than 25 days […]
How do I participate? Do I post a link to this blog on my submission? I participated for the fall recipe roundup, but didn’t get in on it until the very end so I don’t know how to do it in advance. 🙂 Your anise cookies are so cool–when they’re stacked the tops makes them look like that’s the filling in a stack of macarons.
Veronica, All you have to do to participate is submit a recipe (and it can be any recipe!) that says Christmas to you. Yes, please post a link to this blog in your submission. You can email us your recipe or submit it to our MckLinky list (which we’ll open up on 12/19); for our Christmas event, recipes must be received by 12/20 at 9PM EST. For all the details on how to participate, please click on the “Rules” tab at the top of the page, and feel free to let us know if you have any other questions. We can’t wait to see what you submit! 🙂
These look lovely – like macarons!
My aunt makes these anise cookies but doesn’t share her recipe! I’m thrilled to have it. But where can I find anise oil?
K – I’m so glad you like the recipe! I found anise oil at my local grocery store (Wegman’s). Check with your local grocery store first, and if they don’t carry it you could try a specialty food store or a baking supply store. Also, Amazon sells quite a few different brands of anise oil. If you make the cookies, let us know how they turn out! 🙂
[…] squeezing it in for your benefit (don’t you feel special?), and also to participate in the Christmas recipe roundup for All Through The Year […]
Hey, these cookies smell great. They’re in my oven right now! I have a bit of a problem though, they came out a little flat. I placed them about three inches apart and some of them are stuck together.
I’m confused, because I followed the recipe to a “t”. Is there an ingredient missing? My kitchen is cold (about 60 deg. F) so could that have something to do with why they didn’t rise correctly and spread out?
KateinMA, Sorry about the problems you had when making these! It’s hard to know exactly what went wrong without being there with you, but I think that your kitchen being only 60F probably contributed to them not rising properly. There is no ingredient missing…this is the recipe my great-grandmother used for decades…I made the cookies using this recipe and took the pics that are posted. Again, sorry they didn’t turn out for you!
Hi how are you i really liked this.
The cookies are great. My grandmother made these cookies every Christmas but never told anyone how to make them. We had the recipe but it didn’t explain that you let them sit out overnight and we could never get the white caps. Grandmother’s recipe did not use anise seeds and added lemon zest and they also were very good. The last batch I made I used both anise seeds and lemon zest and the cookies were terrific. They’re all good. Thank you
My mother made these cookies, as well as Springerlie, Pfeffernüsse and many others, every Christmas. It was so good at our house! She gave me her recipe, which is similar to yours, although no lemon zest and it makes more than 12 cookies. She also told me, and I have had the same experience, that a small difference in the size of the eggs, or the temperature of the eggs and the room where the cookies sit over night makes a difference in the shape and rising of the cookies. My husband doesn’t like anise, so I make some pink ones for him with peppermint flavoring instead of anise. They come out perfect, they just don’t taste as good.
I just came across your great grandmother’s Anise Drop Cookies recipe. I have been looking high and low for a Anise cookie recipe that that my mother had back in the 70’s. These look very much like the ones she use to make. The recipe that my Mom had called for you to heat the flour in the oven until warm. It also called for the cookies to rest and set over night . sadly my Mom passed away this past June, so I will not be able to share this recipe with her. I remember the cookies she made were sortof crispy on the outside and soft-chewy on the inside and golden brown on the bottom. I am very hopeful these cookies are just as I remember…
I just tried making these also and mine didn’t rise at all. They stayed flat and really hardened after only being in the oven baking for about 8 minutes. I took them out because the bottoms were nearly burning. Help?
The only difference was using anise extract instead of anise oil. Could this have been the problem?
Katie, I don’t think it was because of the anise extract. The cookies probably didn’t rise properly because the dough wasn’t hardened when you put them into the oven. The two most likely causes for this are: (1) they were made on a humid day, or (2) they weren’t left to sit for the full 12 hours to harden. Hope these tips help!
i’m putting dough in fridge this time. we have a pretty warm kitchen so that may have been the problem. I’ll let you know how try #2 turns out!