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Recipe

Pecan Anise Sandies

pecan sandy with anise… ok ive started leaving off the icing… but this pic has the icing

I stopped icing these and said so, which tells you the cookie is good enough without it. The picture has the icing. Make them either way.

Anise in a pecan sandy is the thing nobody expects. It is faintly liquorice, faintly sweet, and it stops a butter-and-sugar cookie tasting of only butter and sugar. Crush the seeds, do not use ground anise — whole seed broken under a pan keeps its oil and ground anise from a jar has already lost it.

A sandy is shortbread: no eggs, no leavening, almost no liquid. It should be pale when it comes out. Browned, it is a biscuit and it has lost the sandy crumb it is named for.

Makes
About 30
Hands-on
30 minutes
Chill
1 hour
Bake
Pale, not golden

An hour of chilling in the middle. They keep a week in a tin and get better after a day.

The iced batch of pecan anise sandiesGlazed pecan anise cookies cooling on the rack
Shot the night it was made. Open any picture for the full photograph.

What you need

The dough

  • 2 sticks soft butter
  • 2/3 cup icing sugar
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tbsp anise seed, crushed
  • 1 1/4 cups pecans, toasted and finely chopped
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tbsp cold water, only if it will not come together

The icing

  • 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
  • 2–3 tbsp milk
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • A pinch of salt

How it goes

  1. 1 — Crush the anise seed under a pan

    Whole seed on a board with the bottom of a heavy pan pressed and rocked over it. Broken, not powdered. The smell when it cracks is the whole reason for the cookie.

  2. 2 — Toast and chop the pecans fine

    350°F for eight minutes, cooled, then chopped small. Big pieces break the cookie apart when you lift it.

  3. 3 — Icing sugar, not granulated

    It has cornflour in it and it dissolves completely into the butter, which is what gives a sandy its fine sandy crumb rather than a crisp snap.

  4. 4 — Cream butter and sugar only until combined

    Two minutes, no more. There is no egg and no leavening here, so beaten air does not help — it just makes them spread.

  5. 5 — Flour in and stop the moment it comes together

    Overworked shortbread is tough shortbread. It will look slightly crumbly and that is right; press a piece and it should hold.

  6. 6 — Chill the dough an hour

    Rolled into a log or formed into balls first, then chilled. Cold dough holds its shape and does not spread into puddles.

    pro tip — Freeze the log and you can cut and bake six at a time for a month.

  7. 7 — Bake at 325°F, and pull them PALE

    Fourteen to sixteen minutes. The bottoms should be barely coloured and the tops still pale. They look underdone and they firm up entirely as they cool.

  8. 8 — Cool completely, then ice if you are icing

    Icing whisked to the thickness of double cream and spooned on so it finds its own edges in uneven pools. On a warm cookie it just soaks in and vanishes.

I leave the icing off now. The picture has the icing. Both are correct. LFG.

More of what comes out of this kitchen on the food wall.

Every picture on this page is one of mine. I paint for a living the rest of the time — that is the gallery, and the originals are for sale.