By: La Voz Staff
Last week La Voz kicked off a series of holiday recipes with a hot bowl of pozole. This week we have something for all those sweet-toothers, Biscochitos!
Biscochitos can be traced back several centuries to the first residents of New Mexico from Spanish colonists in the Santa Fe de Nuevo México area. The Biscochito has been such a staple in New Mexico’s history, that the state officially made it their state cookie in 1989, making them the first state to have an offical state cookie.
Like most traditional recipes throughout Latino cultures there are many different ways to prepare and bake biscochitos and this is the traditional.
Biscochitos de Anis
- 6 cups of flour
- 3 teaspoons of baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons anise seeds
- 2 cups of lard (or shortening, Crisco)
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup of sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 6 or 7 spoons of brandy or water
- 1/2 cup of sugar (for cookie topping)
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Preparation
Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. Cream the lard/ shortnening with the sugar, add the eggs and the anise, mix everything until fluffy.
Add enough brandy/water to the first mix to gather the dough. Roll out the dough about 1/4 inch thick and cut with a cutter. Pass them through the cinnamon sugar mixture and arrange them on a greased baking sheet.
Set the oven at 400 degrees and bake for 10 minutes. Remove cookies and set on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Finished cookies can be eaten with coffee, hot chocolate, or milk.
