Italian Pizzelle Cookies

Family gatherings with the Bonanno side of the family would not be complete without my great Aunt Connie's Pizzelle Cookies. She would make tons of these for every holiday, birthday or get together. These crisp anise flavored cookies hold many memories for me. My Aunt Connie hasn't made these in a long time (she is now in her 90s!) and although she passed down her pizzelle recipe we had not attempted to recreate these until this Christmas. My Dad made a quick trip to the King Arthur Flour store (have I told you how much I love that store????) to buy a pizzelle iron. They are fairly inexpensive (under $50). My mom and I had a fun time making these together. It was nostaglic and sweet as we talked about my great Aunt Connie. Unfortunately we couldn't seem to get these pizzelles crispy like we remembered them. After making 6 batches we figured out that you needed to crisp them up in the oven. The magic trick. It worked out well that we made so many batches since I had a cookie swap I needed 48 cookies for! I packaged these in stacks with a ribbon, they made a beautiful display.

Italian Pizzelle Cookies *recipe easily doubled

Ingredients
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon anise extract
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup melted margarine (or butter)

Directions
1) Beat the eggs, sugar, salt, and anise extract until well combined.

2) Sift together the remaining dry ingredients and add to egg mixture, mixing until smooth.

3) Add the melted butter, again mixing till smooth.

4) Heat your pizzelle iron. As it heats, the batter will stiffen.

5) Brush your pizzelle iron with canola oil (only do this step once). Drop one tablespoon of batter on iron for each pizzelle. Cook the pizzelle according to the instructions that came with your iron. Mine took 20-25 seconds to brown. Make sure you set a timer!

6) Remove the pizzelle from the iron, and cool on a rack. If desired, use a pair of scissors to trim any ragged edges.

7) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Crisp up pizzelle if they are too soft on cookie sheet for 4 minutes in oven.

7) Dust cooled pizzelle with confectioners' sugar, if desired. Store pizzelles in a tin or brown bag - do not place in ziplock or airtight container as they will soften!






Comments

  1. They do look very nice! Are there any left?

    ReplyDelete
  2. My neighbor gave us some of these as a little gift - I'd never had them before. :)

    ReplyDelete

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