Preheat the oven to 180 deg C and grease and line the cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Cream the butter and sugar till fluffy .
Add the vanilla extract,cinnamon and anise powders and mix.
Add the flour slowly and mix with a spatula,it will be crumbly.
Finally add the finely chopped nuts and form a dough with your hands.
Make 1 1/2 inch balls with your hands and place them 1 inch apart on the cookie sheet.
Bake them for 20- 25 minutes or till the bottoms turn golden brown.Take out the powdered sugar in a shallow dish while the cookies are baking.
Cool for 5 minutes and start rolling the cookies in the powdered sugar while still warm.
Dust off the excess and keep it to cool on a wire rack.
When the cookies are cool roll them again in the powdered sugar to give them a nice even coating.
Store in an air tight container.
Recipe Notes
Notes :
Though the traditional recipe asks for using Pecans any nuts like walnuts, hazelnuts or almonds can be used.I used walnuts.
The nuts can be ground to a coarse powder or chopped finely according to your taste.I like the small pieces of nuts in between, so used chopped walnuts.
After mixing everything the mix looks crumbly but as you knead with your hands it comes together to form a dough. Do not apply too much pressure while kneading.
The cookies are rolled twice in powdered sugar, the first rolling allows the sugar to melt into the cookies and the second gives the finished snowy white topping.