Note: This Anise Biscuits recipe was originally part of my Biscuit Advent Calendar, a one-recipe-a-day email series in December. You can find the other recipes and sign up for the next round if you want here.
After yesterday’s baking fury, here’s a much easier recipe with very few ingredients and not a lot of process: Anisplätzchen. As the name suggests, they’re flavoured with aniseed. If you happen to have it in the house, star anise would also work (can confirm). And if you are adventurous even Chinese five-spice (which contains star anise) could make an interesting little experiment. Star anise and aniseed can be substituted for one another (star anise has the stronger flavour) but they are not the same plant. They do both contain anethole giving them their typical liquorice/fennel-y flavour.
There are a few things that make this biscuit quite special. It’s made with whole eggs, flour, and no added fat at all. And ideally, once baked, it looks a bit like a macaron shell. During baking it develops little “feet”. This happens because the biscuits are dried before baking, which allows a thin skin to form on the surface. When they hit the heat of the oven, steam and expanding air can’t escape upwards unhindered and instead push the biscuit up from below.
Anisplätzchen are a fairly traditional Christmas biscuit. Where I’m from in southern Germany, however, we bake a close relative called Springerle (“little jumpers”). These are pressed with carved wooden moulds so they have a pattern on top, but otherwise the dough and technique are very similar.
I have to admit that although I inherited some Springerle moulds, I’ve never actually used them. The biscuits tend to be fairly large and feel a bit old-fashioned. And it also took me well into adulthood to develop a taste for star anise. But now I really appreciate it. And, as it turns out, so does my husband.
Anis biscuits drying peacefully (with a coin for scale):
The key to good Anisplätzchen is the egg foam: the eggs need to be beaten properly until pale, thick, and roughly doubled in volume. This step provides all of the aeration, as there is no chemical leavening in the dough. Drying them before baking is essential for the formation of feet. Many recipes call for 10–12 hours of drying, but I find that 2 hours is already enough to get good results.
There is some debate about whether the eggs should be beaten over a water bath. Warm eggs do whip more easily, but I don’t find this necessary here. Starting with room-temperature eggs and icing sugar (which dissolves much more readily) works perfectly well and keeps the process simple.
You may also come across instructions to bake these biscuits directly on the tray without baking parchment, so that they stick slightly and lift upwards more easily. In theory that makes sense. In practice, my baking trays would need a very thorough clean first. So baking parchment it is.
Baking temperature is kind of medium. Too hot and they will crack, too cold and they won’t lift.
Anisplätzchen Recipe
Makes one tray (scale up as you want)
Ingredients
- 100 g plain flour
- 100 g icing sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp ground aniseed or star anise (to taste)
Instructions
If you want to go classic, butter or oil your baking tray and dust it with a little flour. Otherwise, line it with baking parchment.
Beat the room temperature egg and sugar until they are thick, pale and fluffy and doubled in volume. This takes a few minutes.
Mix in the ground aniseed/star anise and then fold in the flour until they are just combined. Try to keep as much air as possible in the batter.
Here is the egg foam left and dough right.
Use a piping bag or freezer bag with the tip snipped off to pipe little circles onto your tray about the size of a 2 Euro coin (an inch or a bit smaller). Pipe from the bottom up, don’t swirl.
Dry them at room temperature for a few hours (minimum two, it depends on your environment’s humidity). The surfaces should feel dry to the touch.
Preheat the oven to 150°C conventional. Bake for 12-15 minutes. You are looking for pale tops, developed feet and a set surface. Let cool.
(These could have been baked a tad shorter. They had 15 minutes.)
Pack them into tins or boxes. They are not super delicate. The aniseed flavour will develop over a few days. And if you find them too crunchy you can apply the apple/bread trick: stick a small piece of apple or slice of bread into the tin for 12-24 hours (don’t forget to take it out otherwise you risk mould). It softens any hard biscuits.
Also, don’t store them with other biscuits in the same tin. They will pass on their smell.
Enjoy!!