Italian pizzelle are thin Italian waffle cookies that are crisp and flavored with anise. You only need a few ingredients and a pizzelle iron to make these Italian cookies.
½teaspoonanise extractIf you prefer a stronger anise flavor, add up to 1 tsp.
8tablespoonmelted unsalted butter
¼teaspoonkosher salt
Instructions
Whisk together your eggs, sugar, vanilla and anise (see how to measure anise above) in a medium bowl.
3 eggs, ¾ cup of sugar, ½ teaspoon anise extract, 1 ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
Now add your flour, salt and baking powder and mix it well until there are no lumps and it looks smooth.
1 ¾ cups of all purpose flour, 2 teaspoon of baking powder, ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Now add your melted butter and mix that in to your mixture.
8 tablespoon melted unsalted butter
Pre-heat your pizzelle maker. They are all a little different so follow the manufacturers instructions for this.
Once it is heated, add a heaping tablespoon of your thick dough to the middle of each of your pizzelle areas on the iron. Close and cook for about 30-45 seconds until it is a light golden color. If the pizzelle is too light in color you can just close the pizzelle maker and cook the pizzelle for a few more seconds.
Once they are cooked, remove the pizzelle from the iron (they will still be soft and pliable at this point) and place on a cooling rack where they will cool and get nice and crispy. Keep doing this until all the dough is used up!
Once all of your pizzelle are fully cooked and cooled, you can go ahead and clean them up if you would like by lightly breaking off any parts of the pizzelle that went beyond the design edge. I find this to be relaxing but it is not necessary :)
To serve
Stack them up or fan them out on a plate and eat them as is or with a light dusting of powdered sugar. Serve with tea or Italian coffee and Enjoy!
Notes
If using anise oil:Use ¼ teaspoon to start and adjust to taste.Different Flavored pizzelle:To make different flavored pizzelle, follow the recipe the same except use these substitutions.
To make chocolate flavored: Use 1 ½ cups of flour plus 2 tablespoons. Add ¼ cup of cocoa powder (good quality) to the flour before adding the wet ingredients. For the sugar, increase the amount of sugar in the recipe by ¼ cup (for a total of 1 cup of sugar in the recipe).
To make vanilla flavored: Omit the anise and add an extra ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract.
To make lemon flavored: Omit the anise and vanilla and add ½ teaspoon of lemon extract.
To make almond flavored: Omit the anise extract and add ¼ teaspoon of almond extract.