Healthy Anise Biscuits

My grandmother was a fabulous cook -- seriously, she's a legend. My father always recounts all the wonderful meals she used to make and a few days ago was telling us all about her famous anise biscuits (anise is a licorice-like herb that has many health benefits -- we drink anise tea a lot here which is great for digestion problems).

When going through an old cookbook by the fabled Abla Nazeera, another Egyptian cooking star, I stumbled across the recipe and just had to give it a try.

Now I am sure that these biscuits are nowhere near as good as the ones my grandma used to make, but I reaaaaaally liked them. And imagine, a dessert recipe that doesn't call for using oil OR butter -- this one is definitely a keeper :)


Ingredients:

1.1 lbs flour
1.1 lbs powdered sugar
8 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bakers ammonia
1 tsp dried and ground anise leaves


Preheat your oven to 320 degrees F. Separate the egg yolks and whites into 2 separate bowls. Add the sugar and the bakers ammonia to the egg yolks. Whisk the egg whites extremely well, for about 10 minutes - they will look very "bubbly". Add the flour, baking powder and anise into a third bowl, mixing the three ingredients together. Add the egg whites and the flour bowl to the egg yolk mixture. Mix well until the batter becomes a uniform consistency.


Add the batter to a well greased brownie pan and bake for about 40 minutes or until cooked through. Turn off your oven.Remove the pan from the oven and once the biscuit completely cools, cut it into rectangles (they can be as small or as large as you prefer). Turn your oven back on (set it on low) and put the cut up biscuits back in for about 30 minutes so that they can become a crunchy, yummy texture.


I hope you enjoy this recipe. If you gave it a try let me know what you think :)