Biscochos

Biscosho has a meaning of “A handsome Latin person.” I tried these special cookies called Biscochos for the first time at our friend’s house in Anza. They had a package that they purchased from an Argentine market. 9 De oro Azucardos Bicochos is what the package read. I went home a couple days later and researched authentic recipes for these cookies because I had to make them. They taste amazing with Mate tea or coffee. You can make them into tiny teaspoons balls to bake. Those will come out like a wedding cookie or you can roll them out and use a cookie cutter to make them thin. You can also take two of the flat cookies and spread Nutella in the middle and make a delicious cookie sandwich. I split the recipe in half before adding in the flavoring. I did half of the dough with 1 tsp. of almond extract and the other half of the dough with 1/4 tsp. of anise seed. You can freeze the dough if you don’t want to make 300 of these babies.

YIELD: 300 Biscochos

INGREDIENTS:

6 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

1 pound lard or shortening (I used 1 pound of lard found at local grocery store)

1 egg

1 ½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup wine, orange juice or water (I used orange juice)

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 tsp. of almond extract for half the dough (in 3 cups of cookie dough)

1/4 tsp. anise oil for half of the dough (in 3 cups of cookie dough) – Anise tastes like black licorice. Don’t overdo it!

Sugar and Cinnamon Coating - OPTIONAL

1/2 cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Nutella - OPTIONAL

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Sift flour with the next four (4) dry ingredients (baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and ginger)

Cream the lard or shortening until smooth. Add sugar, egg, vanilla, and orange juice. Pour wet ingredients into flour mixture. Add anise at this time and knead together. If mixture is too sticky add some flour.

Roll out the dough onto a floured board or counter and cut out biscochos using a small-floured cookie cutter or you can put the dough into a cookie shooter using your favorite design. You will have to re-knead and roll out the dough several times until you have used all of the dough. Place the biscochos onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for about 8-10 minutes. Longer if they are larger flat cookies.

While biscochos are baking, mix the sugar and cinnamon “coating” ingredients in a wide bowl. Set aside for coating baked biscochos. After baking, coat biscochos with the sugar and cinnamon mixture.

These cookies are just as beautiful to display as they are delicious to eat. Enjoy!

Inspired by: http://www.muybuenocookbook.com/2010/12/biscochos/#comments