Italian Cookies with Anise

OMG I have been looking for this recipe for years. My grandmother made them round and small. She was from Italy and the greatest! THANK YOU SO MUCH

I'm a towboat cook with a big crew so I doubled the recipe. They're very easy to make!

I made these for my husband whose family is Italian and great bakers and cooks. He found the anise to be overwhelming in the glaze. Leave it out at first and then add it slowly to find the right balance. There also was way too much glaze for the number of cookies (see photo of leftover glaze), so half the recipe for the glaze. Also, the cookies didn't cook in the time given. It was close to twice as long. I started with the knots, but it just took too long to roll out individually, so I made little balls instead as you see in many of the Italian cookie photos. They were so much easier to make.

I’m not an expert baker at all but I love anise star sooo much it’s super good

These are 10 star cookies right here! Buttery, tender, almost like a fluffy shortbread, with just the right amount of anise flavor. They are super super easy to make too! I had the cookie dough made and baked in about 30 minutes time--so a 'fast' recipe in terms of baking (which is great). I used a 1.5 tbsp sized cookie scoop to portion the dough, then rolled each one into a rope about 6-7 inches long and 1/2 inch thick before shaping. The dough was super easy to work with, without any extra flour or greasing or anything at all. My only 'ding' to the recipe would be to the milk/sugar amounts in the frosting. 2 tbsps of milk (I actually used heavy cream instead) was not nearly enough liquid to make the glaze a glaze. I needed about 10-12 tbsps of cream to get the right consistency. It made a ton of glaze too, so I would probably half the amount next time. And there will definitely be a next time for these cookies! Thank you for the recipe! (P.S. I got 24 cookies out of this recipe)