Anise Biscotti

Every once in awhile, I'll start craving the comforting feeling I get when eating these cookies. Today was one of those days. Anise is soothing to the stomach, which is a wonderful benefit (I made my sister these cookies when she was pregnant and had morning sickness), but I think they also bring about warm memories of feeling loved (isn't that the best part about foods, after all?).

These are moist, meaty biscotti...unlike the hard, dry ones you get in coffee shops. Today, I wanted more *meat* in them, so I added dried cranberries and slivered almonds.

Anise Biscotti (a recipe and memories from my Mom)

~ An Italian specialty, anise-flavored dough is shaped into small loaves, baked halfway, then sliced into bars and baked until crisp.

2 1/2 cups flour (I used some whole wheat flour and also added some wheat bran and ground flax seed for extra nutrition and fiber)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, slightly softened
1 Tablespoon anise extract
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs

Preheat 375.

Into a large bowl, measure 1 1/2 cups flour and remaining ingredients (I just dumped all the ingredients into my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl...*all* of the flour...and it handled it well). With mixer at low speed, beat ingredients until just mixed; increase to medium speed and beat 3 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl w/spatula. With spoon, stir in remaining flour until well mixed. Refrigerate dough 1 hour or until firm (I skipped that step today, as I was too hungry for them NOW, and they came out just as wonderful...the dough stiff enough to work with right away, perhaps because of my addition of wheat bran and flax seed).

Divide dough in half. On well-floured surface, with hands, shape each half into a 12" X 2" loaf; place both on greased large cookie sheet, about 2 inches apart.



Bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven.



With a sharp knife, immediately slice each loaf crosswise into 1-inch bars. Turn bars on their cut sides, making sure they do not touch each other.





Return to oven and bake 7 minutes. Remove from oven and turn each cookie over to the other cut side. Return to oven and bake 8 minutes more, or until golden. Remove to rack to cool completely.

Store in tightly covered container up to 1 week. Makes about 2 1/2 dozen.




EnJoy.