Travel Secrets
Greek Christmas pastry | Recipes for Kourabiedes and Melomakarona
Source: Kathimerini newspaper
With Christmas just around the corner we select the two most popular Greek Christmas pastry recipes and we make our own "Melomakarona" honey cakes and "Kourabiedes" almond shortbreads with icing sugar!
Pastry specialist Stelios Parliaros guides us in making the most delicious traditional Christmas treats as presented in his TV show Sweet Alchemies.
All you have to do is obtain the ingredients, wear your cooking apron and bring the Christmas sweet fragrance into your home by following the instructions of the recipes below. Have fun in the kitchen!
Source of video: visitgreece
Κourabiedes
Ingredients
400 gr. butter
130 gr. almonds
½ teaspoon baking powder
vanilla
110 gr white sugar
30 gr. black rum
600 gr. flour
Icing sugar for dusting on top
Recipe process:
Cut the butter into pieces and let it melt in the microwave without stirring. Place the butter and the icing sugar in the blender and work the mixture on high speed for about 20 minutes. Bake the almonds in the oven at 160 degrees and then chop them into large chunks. Add the flour, the baking powder and the vanilla slowly and gradually to the butter mixture while beating continuously until the dough becomes smooth and homogenous. Add the rum to the dough in the very end, as well as the almonds and blend with your hands.
Start taking small portions of your mixture and shape individual round-shaped Kourabiedes of about 20-25 gr. each. Place them on a baking tray as you make them one by one and slightly press your finger at the top of each portion. Bake in a preheated oven at 160 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven, let them cool thoroughly and place them in a nice Christmas platter one by one by sprinkling plenty of icing sugar on them as you go along. Ready!
Platter of Melomakarona
Source: newsit.gr
Μelomakarona
Ingredients for the honey mini cakes:
200 gr. orange juice
270 gr. sunflower oil
600 gr. flour
20 gr. white sugar
½ tsp. of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
½ teaspoon of graded clove
50 gr. butter
zest of 1 orange
200 gr. of walnuts in chunks
Ingredients for the syrup:
350 gr. sugar
250 gr. water
an orange cut in half
1 cinnamon stick
50 gr. of honey
chopped walnuts
plenty of honey
Making the syrup:
Take a saucepan and pour the sugar, water, orange juice and cinnamon stick. Boil for one minute and add the honey by stirring continuously. Let the syrup cool down completely.
Recipe process:
Use a deep saucepan and place the orange juice and the sunflower oil in it to start with. Continue by adding the cinnamon and graded cloves, the baking soda, the sugar and the melted butter. Sprinkle the orange zest on top and finish off by adding the walnuts in small pieces. Use your hands and gently mix working the mixture for a little while from the center outwards. Start taking portions of the mixture and shape into regularly sized and oval shaped mini-cakes and place in a baking tray one by one as you go along. Preheat your oven at 180 degrees and bake for 25-30 minutes until your Melomakarona acquire a dark golden color. Remove from the oven and while they are still hot pour the cold syrup on top of them making sure that the syrup covers every cake. If needed turn the cakes over so that they will thoroughly soak on the honey syrup. Place your Melomakarona in a nice Christmas platter one by one by sprinkling plenty of walnuts in minute pieces on them as you go along. Ready!
M e r r y C h r i s t m a s !!
Recipes by glykes-alchimies.gr
