It's hard to believe it is still Thanksgiving weekend, but today does kick off Advent and all across America families are putting up their Christmas trees, holiday decor and baking Christmas cookies! I prefer to bake Italian holiday cookies because Mom loves them, they are delicious and they tend to be more wholesome than the average cookie.
In general, Italian cookies call for high quality, natural ingredients such as butter, figs, nuts and seeds with just enough added sugar so they are not sickeningly sweet. Anise seeds work well in pizzelles.
Pizzelles, an Italian wafer cookie, appear during Christmas time (or Easter, or at Italian weddings!) and are one of Italy's oldest cookies. Pizzelles were originally made for the Feast Day of San Domenico in Abruzzo, which is not celebrated in December, but is celebrated May 1st.
To make pizzelles, you will need a good pizzelle iron to make the snowflake design. There are many types of pizzelle irons on the market; I'm partial to a nonstick iron. Some pizzelle irons can make 4 at-a-time; ours only has space to make two at-a-time. I purchased ours on a trip to Philadelphia's Italian Market and bought it at Fante's.
Recipe Yields: 50 pizzelles
Ingredients
2 tablespoons (Tbl sp) (28g) unsalted butter
2 Tbl sp (26g) vegetable shortening (trans fat free)
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbl sp Canola oil
1 tsp (2g) anise seeds
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 Tbl sp (15g) baking powder
1/8 tsp (dash) salt
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups (300g) sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp anise oil (oil vs. extract - look for at your Italian Market)
Putting it all together
use the same method that I posted for my Cioccolato Pizzelles
Buon Natale!
Related Links
Fante's Pizzelle Recipes
Photo and blog post Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.
1 comment:
Your posts are so tantalizing !!!!
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