Not Snickerdoodles

I brought these cookies to work a couple weeks ago, and all day long people were excitedly coming into my office for "Snickerdooles". But I would have to dramatically stop them: "Wait!", I'd say. "They aren't snickerdooles! They're anise cookies! Anise, like black licorice!" And then they'd get this awful, horrible look on their faces. "Black licorice? Seriously? I hate black licorice! Nobody likes black licorice! How could you possibley ruin perfectly good cookies with black licorice!?!?" "It's ok", I soothed. "It's subtle. You probably won't even notice. Come on. Just one bite. I won't hurt..."

Ok, so that's a bit of an over dramatization of what actually happened. But it's more fun to pretend like I'm the wicked queen from Snow White. Anywaaaayys... The cookies were actually quite popular once I convinced people to try them. The cookies are called "Biscochitos". Apparently they are the state cookie of New Mexico. A friend made some last year, and I really liked them, so I thought I'd give them a try. They are a shortening based cookie, which sounds gross, I know. But the shortening gives the cookies a nice, flaky texture. And the anise really is subtle. I ground my anise (by hand, mortar and pestle style, good old timey fun), so it's not like you're taking a bite of anise seeds, it's more smooth than that. Probably not a cookie that I'll make again soon, but it is a different, easy backup.