Thin Italian waffle cookies featuring optional anise flavoring for an authentic Italian treat. Perfect with a cup of coffee or espresso and a family favorite at Christmas time. Dust with powdered sugar for an extra sweet touch!
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, anise seed (if using), baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a medium size bowl, whisk together the sugar, melted butter, eggs, vanilla extract, and anise extract (if using).
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, then stir with a large spatula to blend. Stop when there are no more flour pockets. Be careful not to over-mix. Batter will be thick but viscous and will thicken more as it sits.
Using a cookie scoop2 (I use this #50 cookie scoop for all of my standard size cookies), drop batter into the center of each spot on your pizzelle iron, working quickly but carefully. Cook pizzelles per the instructions on your iron, but they typically take between 30 and 90 seconds. They will still seem wet and floppy when you open your iron, but they will crisp up as they cool.
Remove cooked pizzelles from the iron and place in a single layer on a cooling rack or flat parchment lined surface to cool. You can use kitchen shears or a knife to trim edges, if desired. Dust with powdered sugar before serving, if desired. Store pizzelles covered at room temperature up to 2 weeks. Pizzelles freeze well, up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
Notes
Anise seed/anise extract: these additions are completely optional. You do not need to replace them with any additional ingredients. Simply omit.
Pizzelle batter: a Tablespoon of dough is what worked well for my iron. Depending on the size of the iron you're using, this may be too much or too little. Read the manual that came with your iron and/or use the first few pizzelles to test batter amount and cook time.
All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.