Anise Seed Wafers

I came across a recipe for Tortas de Aciete y Anis in the cookbook "Food of Spain". I am always looking for recipes where the fat in the cookie or biscuit or bread or wafer is olive oil and there seems to be some tradition of this in Spain because Mark Bittman has a great orange cookie recipe that he says is an ancient Sevillan recipe. So I tried this recipe and it is quite good - I of course added the part about whole wheat flour and I like a little less sugar. The totally weird thing about this was that the liquids are all alcoholic - beer and anissette - except for the olive oil. Easy to make and fun, they remind me of my friend T., an epicurean dandy who used to mix hash and tobacco into roll your own anise papers. Ahhh, the days of youth.

Speaking of which, I have started to notice that some people in LA have an abundance of statuary. This house has many many many replicas of David.

Tortas de Aciete y Anis
3 cups all purpose flour (or half and half all purpose and whole wheat pastry)
1/2 Cup Olive Oil
1/2 cup beer
1/4 Cup Spanis Anis Liqueur

1/2 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Sesame Seeds
2 Tabls. Aniseeds

Preheat oven to 400 - line baking sheet with parchment.

Mix flour, 1 teas. salt in a bowl and make a well. Pour in beer, olive oil and anissette. Mix into a dough. Knead for about 4 minutes. Make into a ball. Divide dough in half. Divide each half into 8 portions.

Combine sugar sesame seeds and aniseeds.

Make a pile of seed mixture on your work surface, put a piece of dough on it, roll out on top of the seeds, embedding the seeds into the top. You want a six inch round. Put the rounds on baking sheet, seed side up and bake for about 5 or 6 minutes, until bases are crisp. Then broil until the sugar carmelizes about 60 secs in my case in my oven.

Drink with coffee and a little anisette.