Get a taste of Italian anisette cookies with this recipe

When reader Alice Boyd contacted me for an Italian anise cookie recipe, the hunt was on.

There were tons of recipes on the Internet; which one to pass along to Boyd and her fellow Taste of the Town readers? I settled on this one from the Conde Nast website Epicurious because it came with the citation, “Just like my Nonna’s cookies! I finally found the recipe!” Not sure if it’s the one Boyd is looking for, but that’s certainly a ringing endorsement.

ITALIAN ANISETTE COOKIES

½ cup butter, softened

½ cup sugar

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons anise extract

2½ cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

2-3 tablespoons milk

Icing (recipe follows)

Colored sprinkles (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add extract.

Blend flour and baking powder. Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar mixture, then add 1 tablespoon milk. Repeat, then mix in enough remaining flour that dough is like brownie batter (softer than a drop cookie dough). Use a tablespoon-size cookie scoop to make cookies, patting with wet fingers to smooth edges. Bake 10-12 minutes (they won’t be brown, but the insides will be soft and cakelike).

For icing, mix 2 cups confectioners’ sugar, 3 tablespoons milk and 1/8 teaspoon anise extract. (Microwave for 10 seconds, if necessary, so it is thin enough for dipping.) Dip half of each cookie in icing, immediately adding sprinkles, if used.

Allow icing to harden overnight, then store cookies in air-tight containers or freeze. Makes 3 dozen.

— Recipe adapted from Epicurious

MORE READER FINDS

For Sue Mattern, Kathy Miller said she finds original-flavor Open Pit barbecue sauce at Larry’s Great Western Meats at 420 S. Valley View Blvd. She, Joyce Croarkin and Pat Ilic also found it at Glazier’s Food Marketplace at 8525 W. Warm Springs Road, although Miller and Croarkin said Glazier’s sometimes runs out. And Chris Kirk, formerly of Detroit, emailed that she gets her supply at Winco at 80 N. Stephanie St. in Henderson; there’s another Winco at 6101 N. Decatur Blvd. …

More on stuffed cabbage: Dolores Acker emailed that it can be found “99 percent of the time” at the Seasons buffet at the Silverton, 3333 Blue Diamond Road.

MORE READER REQUESTS

Miller is looking for “beer sausage” cold cuts. …

Pat Dowd is looking for a local source for partially cooked lima beans, from a supermarket produce department, which she said her daughter found in the Chicago suburbs. …

Dowd also is looking for hot cherry peppers, which she used to get at Smith’s. …

And Karen Arbogast is looking for Scandinavian Delights strawberry-rhubarb Danish spread, which she used to get at Cost Plus World Market.

Readers?

Submit information to Heidi Knapp Rinella, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125-0070. You also can send faxes to 702-383-4676 or email her at hrinella@reviewjournal.com. Include your first and last names and, if emailing, put “Taste of the Town” in the subject line. Follow @HKRinella on Twitter.