I had a collection of aunts that made Bertie Wooster's look like a
vicar's tea party. Every year about this time Great-Aunt Myrtle would
descend upon us with a batch of her annual baking. We could conclude
only that she was intent on wiping out the rest of the family so that
her daughers could inherit /everything/. Her German Christmas cookies
were like concrete. Honest, if George W decided to drop these things on
Iraq the war would be over in a matter of days. The only way you could
even bite through her cookies was to plunge them into your coffee and
leave them there until the coffee had gone cold.

Rumour had it that she had a special rolling pin that shaped her cookies
into their traditional rectangles, with their raised shapes of knights
and damsels. She apparently made these WMDs in the autumn and then
intentionally left them to go stale and hard.

Yes, I know Google is my friend, and I've no problems Googling for a
recipe, but I need a name for these things to Google on. Anyone have any
ideas? As I remember them, they were vaguely anise-seed flavoured, if
that helps any.

RobtE