ITALIAN EASTER COOKIES OR KNOTS
Source: Terry Van Kirk's Grandma DiTucci
Makes 144 cookies
4 cups sugar
2 cups oil
12 medium eggs
4 tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
12 cups flour
4 tablespoons baking powder
Frosting (recipe follows)
Cream sugar and oil together; set aside.
Whip eggs until lemony. Combine with sugar mixture and beat until light; stir in milk and vanilla; set aside.
Sift flour and baking powder together. Combine with egg mixture and knead until air bubbles are out. You will have a dough that can be kneaded and rolled and shaped. Roll out long tubes about a half-inch in diameter, cut into four- inch long pieces, tie into knots or just make circles.
Bake in preheated oven at 375 degrees F until lightly browned.
Frost cooled cookies with lemon or anise frosting, sprinkle with confetti colored sprinkles. May use red and green sprinkles to make into Christmas cookies.
VARIATION:
To make these into true Italian Easter cookies, roll out a large, flat round of dough and shape it into a boy or a girl shape, about six to eight inches in height. Flatten the shape onto a cookie sheet. Make dough ropes and braid them into arms, which are held "akimbo" on the hips. Set a hard-boiled egg into the belly of the figures, braid some more dough, and crisscross the eggs with two braids, fastening it down to the body of the figure. Add cloves for eyes and mouth.
Bake in a preheated oven at 375 degrees F until lightly browned.
Make clothing with lemon or anise frosting, leaving the facial features unfrosted.
These are traditionally given to each boy or girl child on Easter Sunday. Nowadays, we make more nontraditional chickens and bunnies, for the same purpose. Putting the egg in the stomach seems to be a leftover allusion to an ancient spring fertility ritual.
FROSTING:
1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar
Few tablespoons milk
2 teaspoons lemon flavoring or anise flavoring |