Biscochos: A Mexican dessert

Greetings!

Finally! Here is my Grandmother's yummyful Biscocho recipe! Our family typically only bakes these cookies for Christmas or weddings because they're full of lard and sprinkled with sugar. Anyway, Christmas is about breaking all the health rules, so might as well take it to the extreme.

As I explain the recipe, there may be odd "steps" that you need to follow. Don't ask. We are a Mexican family... we have a way of cooking that can't be explained. Just do it. Also, this recipe is near impossible to do alone, so make it a family day and have everyone pitch in to help.

Biscocho Recipe

makes 130 cookies

Ingredients for dough:

1 lb. lard - softened

2 eggs at room temperature

1/4 cup white wine (Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill)

1 cup of sugar

6 cups of sifted flour

2 tsps. ground anise

Ingredients for sugar coating:

1 cup of sugar

2 Tbls. cinnamon

(the coffee is necessary, as this will take you about 3 hours)

Preparing the dough:

When preparing dough, whoever starts the process, must finish it. If someone else sticks their hands in, the change in body temperature will mess up the cookies and they will have a different consistency. It's a rule that has been passed down 3 generations... just do it. ;)

1) In a LARGE bowl, use your hands to mix the lard and the sugar

2) In a seperate bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the bowl 

3) Add the 6 cups of sifted flour - 1 cup at a time. It's better to add 1 cup at a time for better handling 

4) In between the cups of flour, add the anise and wine

5) Mix well until the dough no longer sticks to your fingers. If the dough is still sticking, continue to add small amounts of flour until it doesn't.

6) Roll the dough into a giant ball and let it sit for TEN MINUTES.

7) After 10 minutes, seperate the ball into 4 smaller balls and cover the bowl with a towel as you work on 1 ball of dough at a time.

8) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

9) With a rolling pin, roll out a ball of dough to about 1/4 inch to cut cookies.

Word of caution: the more detailed your cookie cutter is, the longer you will take to get them on the tray. Here is what I use to make this process a bit faster:

Small enough to let the little ones cut them out while I line the tray. As you can see from the pic above, these cookies don't have to be seperated too much. They aren't going to expand at all.

10) place the cookies on an ungreased cookie tray (you will fill about 8 trays in total)

11) put the cookie tray on the middle rack and bake for 15 minutes at 375 degrees

12) On a large plate, mix your cookie coating (sugar and cinnamon)

13) As the cookies are removed from the oven, immediately toss them (a few at a time) onto the plate and toss them around a couple of times to coat them. Place them in a large bowl where they can cool.

This is where a buddy system pays off. While one person is coating, the other can start refilling the cookie sheet with the remaining dough. You will fill around 8 trays (totalling 130 cookies) depending on the size of cookie you make, repeating the above steps each time.

When you are done, sit down and enjoy a yummy Biscocho!

One batch makes so many, that you can do what we do and hand them out as gifts to friends, family, neighbors, and teachers!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!