Spanish orange, cinnamon and anise biscuits

This recipe is inspired by my love of the Spanish Tortas de Aciete - a speciality from Seville.  A thin oil and yeast based cracker topped with sugar and anise.  Whilst searching for a recipe I came across this:

Serious Eats Spanish anise cookies which also uses the distinct flavour and texture of anise that I love but in a biscuit.  The recipe in Serious Eats is based on one in cookbook Rustica.

So until I attempt the tortas here is my attempt at Serious Eats recipe -  for Spanish anise biscuits (with a little bit of tweaking).  It is definitely "aniseedy" and a strong, herbal flavoured biscuit - great after dinner with coffee.

preparation time: 10 minutes
cooking time:  10-15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp aniseed (the original recipe uses fennel seed) 
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/3 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• zest and juice of 1 orange
• 2 tbs sugar and 1 tbs sesame seed for sprinkling 

• Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a baking sheet
• Heat olive oil in a small pan, add aniseed and fry for 30 seconds.
• In a separate bowl mix flour, sugar, orange zest and cinnamon. 
• Pour olive oil and orange juice over mixture and stir until the dough comes together
• Lightly flour a clean work surface and roll to about 3/4 inch thick.  
• Place biscuits on baking sheet with some space between and sprinkle with sesame seed and sugar mix.
• bake until golden (about 10-15 minutes) 
• Let biscuits cool on a rack, then store in an airtight container. Let rest overnight if you can as the flavours continue to fully mix and develop.  You can also leave the pre-made dough overnight in the fridge (wrapped in cling film) which I did.  This also gave the flavours time to combine well before baking.