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A woman at a craft show once sampled Michelle Valenti’s home-baked cookies and, with tears in her eyes, told the Exeter woman they tasted just like the cookies her late grandmother used to send from Italy. “That was the best compliment,” said Valenti, who bakes such Italian specialties as pepper cookies, ricotta cookies, anise cookies, sesame-seed cookies, white-filled and chocolate-filled cookies as well as traditional American favorites in her home. Most of the recipes came from Valenti’s own grandmother, Margaret Valenti, who taught her how to bake. “I remember her all the time,” said Valenti, who still uses a large square wooden board her father, Sam Valenti, crafted for his mom. The board is helpful when she’s using a rolling pin, Valenti said. But, for the anise cookies she made on a recent Friday, “rolling” each sweet treat meant shaping it with her hands, which she did prior to baking, cooling and using her finger to give them a “dip and swirl” coating of pink icing. Baking helps her de-stress after working in the office, said Valenti, who is chief financial officer at the Woodlands. The one-time owner of a former West Pittston coffeeshop, she now operates Cafe Valenti as a home business. Customers call 570-881-1424 or email [email protected] to place orders for her Italian specialties, biscotti, pumpkin cookies and such American classics as chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, snickerdoodle and potato-chip cookies (that last recipe comes courtesy of her mother-in-law, Carol Schelinski of Illinois).

 

Noting that last year she baked 4,500 cookies during eight days leading up to Christmas, Valenti expects she’ll be baking through the night again this year. The cut off for Christmas orders is Dec. 17, she said. And the last day for pick-up is Dec. 23. Meanwhile, if you’d like to do some baking yourself at home, here is one of Valenti’s favorite recipes.

ANISE COOKIES
4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 heaping teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons Crisco
6 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon anise flavoring

Preheat oven to 375.
Mix dry ingredients.
Add Crisco and mix like pie crust.
In a separate bowl mix beaten eggs, milk, vanilla and anise.
Make a well in flour mixture and add egg mixture.
Mix well and, if needed to get the right texture for rolling, add an extra 1 to 2 cups of flour. Start with 1 additional cup of flour and add more if necessary.
Shape each cookie by rolling a cookie-size amount between your hands to form a rounded ball. Bake for 10 minutes total, switching baking pans between bottom and top oven racks after 5 minutes. Bake until slightly brown on top.

ANISE ICING
1 pound powdered sugar
1/2 cup Crisco 1/2 cup milk plus extra, if needed
1/8 teaspoon vanilla powder
1/2 teaspoon anise flavoring 12 drops red food coloring Mix all ingredients.

Add additional milk, if needed to reach desired consistency. Spread on top of cookies that have cooled. Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or Twitter@BiebelMT.