Cut-out cookies are a traditional holiday treat
Rooting deeper into her family’s collection of vintage cookie cutters this year, our test cook added birds and even a few rabbits to the usual cookies shaped like bells and stars and Santa carrying his pack.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
They say you should never watch how sausage is made. But our test cook thinks there’s actually something appealing about the process of cutting out cookie dough, even if it’s messy.
Mary Therese Biebel | Times Leader
“I hope you like the flavor of anise,” I said to our news editor, Liz Baumeister, earlier this week as I held out plate of holiday cut-out cookies, fresh from the Times Leader test kitchen.
“I do, as long as it’s subtle,” she said.
“Oh, these are subtle,” columnist Bill O’Boyle assured her. He previously had a cookie and used that very word to describe them.
“Subtle is the word of the day,” Bill said as he and Liz each pronounced the cookies to be “very tasty” and Liz added that she liked the sprinkling of red and green sugar.
Now I don’t think I deserve credit for any particularly subtle addition of anise oil. Maybe I deserve a little credit for making the dough the night before, or for getting up at 6 a.m. to start baking this traditional holiday treat. But as for the amount of flavoring, I just poured into the dough the entire contents of one of those little bottles you can buy at a pharmacy.
For the record I bought my supply of anise oil at Bedwick’s Pharmacy & Gifts on Hazle Avenue in Wilkes-Barre, and each bottle contains 1 teaspoon, also known as 3.7 milliliters, also known as 1 fluid dram.
I like thinking of it as a dram, which makes the whole process seem more dramatic, as in “Yes, I have been to the apothecary! I have procured a dram of the precious elixir!”
Actually, I have a second bottle, with another dram of anise oil in it, which I’m planning to save for a special occasion. Regular readers can probably deduce I’m hoping a certain fan of anise cookies will soon feel well enough to enjoy them.
In the meantime, suspecting that I might not find too many taste testers in the office during a holiday week, I took some of the cookies to St. Nicholas — St. Mary Parish and shared them with Lucille, Judy and Maggie, who were all there for the Monday noon-time Mass and who all gave the cookies a thumbs up.
“Keep baking!” Lucille said.
My friend Chris Bedwick was there, too, and while she’s not an anise fan, her husband is. So I gave her some for George, with a reminder: “Tell him I’m using your anise oil, from the pharmacy.”
Anise Cut-Out Cookies
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
8 ounces sour cream
up to 5 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon anise oil
Cream together butter, and sugar. Mix in lightly beaten eggs, sour cream, and all the other ingredients, including about 3 cups of flour, to start. Gradually add more flour, up to 2 additional cups, until dough is no longer sticky. The less flour you use, the softer the cookies will be, and the more flour you use, the less sticky the dough will be.
Refrigerate the dough overnight for ease of handling.
When it’s time to roll out the dough, use a floured pastry cloth and floured rolling pin to roll the dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters that have been dipped in flour. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 to 15 minutes on greased cookie sheets.
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