Pear and Anise Muffins, and Anise Biscuits

I love to try anything that has anise because I enjoy its flavor. These are two recipes that contain anise that I've tried recently.

Pear and Anise Muffins

Ingredients:
1 medium can pears (around 400g)
2 cups flour
1/3 cups finely chopped almonds
2 tsp grated lemon rind
2 tsp ground anise
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup sour cream or buttermilk (can be substituted with yogurt, milk, or a mixture of both)

Method:
Heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Drain the pears (catching the juice) and cut into small pieces. Carefully mix the flour with the baking powder, baking soda, ground anise, almonds, and chopped pears.

Lightly beat the eggs in a bowl with the vanilla and lemon rind. Add the sugar, oil, sour cream and 80 ml pear juice and mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and mix just long enough to moisten the dry ingredients.

Butter the muffin tin or place a paper baking case in each cup. Spoon the mixture into the tin or the paper cases.

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Take out of the oven, leave the muffins in the tin for a further 5 minutes, then take out and cool.

You can cover them with cream cheese frosting or just leave them without any decoration.

Anise Biscuits

Ingredients:
3/4 cup oil
2 eggs
1 cup icing sugar
2 tbsp anise seeds
1 tsp ground anise
1 tsp baking powder
3 1/2 cups flour ( you may not need all the quantity , so add little by little until you can work with the dough)

Mix all the ingredients, roll out the dough between two pieces of baking paper, cut into shapes, and bake in a preheated oven until light gold. Let cool. Enjoy!