Alexa & Matt Alfaro Mom's Anise Cookies

Recipes

Mom's Anise Cookies

By Alexa & Matt Alfaro

For nine years, the siblings operated both a food truck and a counter-service restaurant, celebrating their paternal heritage. Meat on the Street offered dishes like lumpia (skinny, fried pork rolls), pancit (noodles) and skewered meats. Their mother passed down traditions from her Italian family, one being anise cookies – a butter cookie flavored with black licorice-like anise seed. Everyone in her family is a fan of the cookies, and it’s in winter that they typically love to eat them. The source of the recipe is their grandmother, who made them “in weird shapes, lumpy shapes,” Alexa says, and “rationed out” the icing. In her mother’s world, those cookies took on a more uniform shape, but for the siblings, those lumpy cookies had a certain attraction. Matt wants “her weird ones back,” says his sister. You are welcome to make them as lumpy as you want and ration out the icing – well, maybe not that last part.

Ingredients

Makes about 6 dozen

Dry ingredients:

3-3 1/2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Sift dry ingredients onto wax paper, add to a large bowl and set aside.

2-3 teaspoons anise seed

1/3 cup sugar

Add sugar and anise seed to dry ingredients. Stir.

Wet ingredients:

4 eggs

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 teaspoon anise oil

Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon vanilla

1-2 tablespoons milk

Add powdered sugar, melted butter and vanilla to the bowl. Combine with a mixer mixer or stir by hand with a whisk. Add milk until the icing is smooth and slowly runs off the dipped spoon.
Add more powdered sugar and/or milk to desired consistency.

Glaze each cookie and add sprinkles while the icing is wet. Allow to dry completely before storing in an airtight container.  

Instructions

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs and the canola and anise oils. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add wet ingredients. Mix and turn out of the bowl onto a floured surface. Knead, adding more flour as needed, until you get a smooth shape.

Roll the dough into a log, then cut into balls and make a thumbprint on each ball. Bake close together on an ungreased baking sheet in a 350-degree oven for 12-15 minutes.

Top cookies with icing and sprinkles.

Bio

From 2014 to 2023, Matt and Alexa Alfaro operated Meat on the Street, a food business that celebrated their Filipino heritage and the dishes they grew up eating. With the siblings at the helm and the support of their parents, MOTS expanded from a food truck to include a catering business and a retail location in Downtown Milwaukee. After nine years, during which they became one of the most well-known mobile food businesses in the city, they closed MOTS to pursue new opportunities.

Alexa and Matt Alfaro

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