The smell of something sweet wafts through the house on Michigan Avenue as Nina Ochs bakes anise cookies and remembers her mother and grandmother's Italian confections. Made with sifted dry ingredients and oil measured in the shell of an egg, the soft, cake-like cookies have a distinct licorice flavor.
“My mom measured the oil using an egg shell,” Ochs said. “Normally, people will weigh out the oil, the shortening or the butter. My mother used shells of oil. She would crack the tip of the egg and remove the egg then measure the oil by egg shells. If you’re making a half a recipe of anise cookies, that’s six eggs so you would do three egg shells of oil for that recipe.”
