My family has used this recipe for many years. I can still smell the delicious aroma of the cookies baking throughout the house. Now, every Christmas, my sons and I continue the custom. I do hope you like these.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 12 mins |
| Additional Time: | 3 mins |
| Total Time: | 45 mins |
| Servings: | 48 |
| Yield: | 4 dozen |
Ingredients
- 1 cup shortening
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon anise extract
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ cup milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
- In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the anise extract. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; stir into the creamed mixture alternately with the milk. Mix until just blended. Over-mixing will result in tough cookies.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters. Place cookies at least one inch apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.
- Bake in the preheated oven for about 12 to 15 minutes or until firm. Cookie will not turn a golden brown. If they do, they’re over-done. Turn out onto rack to cool. Wait until cool if frosting.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 92 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 11 g |
| Cholesterol | 8 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 1 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 74 mg |
| Sugars | 3 g |
| Fat | 5 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Very good recipe. i make this type of recipe everytime I need a suger cookie with eggs added.
This recipe is amazing!! Swap the anise for vanilla and TADA!! You have a fan favorite. I knead my dough with a generous amount of bench flour. It creates good and visible flaky layers once they’re baked. I’ve baked both ways, chilled and un-chilled. I didn’t see too much of a difference. So if you’re in a hurry, just use the bench flour more before rolling otherwise it will be a sticky mess on the counter and pin. If you have the chill time, you won’t need as much bench flour when rolling out the dough.
I’ve tried so many cut out cookies and I was not happy how they came out. I tried this recipe and this is the best one. I will be making them with my grandkids tomorrow and I know they’ll love them
I’m giving this recipe one star because of the recipe, NOT the cookie. The cookies are great, however, the recipe is horribly blown out of proportion. 4 cups of flour? More like 8. When I mixed four cups of flour into the mixture it was the consistency of normal cookie batter, not doughy enough for cut-out ones. I mixed in more and more flour cup by cup until I mixed in about 3 or 4 more cups in and it FINALLY had the consistency of normal cut-out cookies. I don’t recommend making these cookies.
I did not care for this recipe. It was bland. The only reason I chose it, was because I didn’t have to chill the dough before rolling it out.
Very good! We used vanilla instead of anise out of preference, and they were tasty. These cookies hold their shape very well, roll easily, and are easy to make. This is our new Christmas Cookie recipe. Thank you Nancy.
They where awsome!!
Excellent cookies…made them with my children and they had a blast. Only reason it’s not 5 starts is because I had to use a lot more flour…but that could’ve been something I did wrong too:)
I tried this with my 3 yr old and it was great! everything worked out great! thanks
I had no luck at all with this recipe. The dough was so stiff it would not detatch from the press, even after letting it warm. We even had a hard time pressing it with a glass.
I found the recipe very easy to make. The dough rolled nicely and the cookies baked perfectly. I changed the anise to vanilla and it was a nice flavor.
This is just what I was looking for. Thank you for sharing. The kids just wanted to be able to decorate them, not wait 3 hours for sugar cookie dough to chill.
this is a great recipe! just what I was looking for. I just finished baking them, very easy
the cookies are great we had made them into teddy bear shapes and iced onesies on them. they looked hilarious.any way it is great that you can make them into all kinds of shapes. also make kool designs on them. im out see yah:)
I had been looking for a recipe for anise cut-out cookies. I remember my grandmother making them at Christmas when I was little and they were so good. They were different from all the other cookies we had and grandma was the only one in the family to make them. I have her old cookie cutters but her recipe can’t be found. I tried this recipe and found it to be very close to hers. The cookies were very good but I think I’ll add a little more anise next time. I remember helping my grandmother put the colored sugar sprinkles on the cookies just before they went into the oven so many years ago. I’m 57 and grandma has been gone for 4 years now. Thanks for sharing your recipe and bringing back those wonderful memories of grandma’s cut-out anise cookies
Guess people didn’t read what they were making!! These are CUT OUT cookies NOT Sugar cookies. My family has made these for year at least 5 generations. I love them along with everyone else. I can’t eat frosting so I am one of the few who eat them plain. But we usually frost and decorate most of them and everyone else eats them and loves them. Our recipe I think has a 1/2c sugar in it too though, so maybe for the one’s who want a little more to it and 1/2c sugar too. But these are more like a tea biscuit, not sugar cookie, so do NOT expect sugar cookie. But my family makes these for every holiday (we have hundreds of cookie cutters) and for our birthdays every year my mom makes us these instead of cakes (of course no frosting on mine!!) YUM!! Great for dipping in coffee, tea or milk or hot coco if you do not frost them. (P.S. frost the flat back side for easier decorating and use the frosting mix of just milk and powder sugar add food coloring).
My daughter chose this recipe without reading the review. We concur with the previous reviewer, these were flavourless cookies, a complete waste of time and money.
We are very disappointed with this recipe, no taste very bland. Does not matter how you try to improve this recipe, still no taste.