Contents
The Greek Christmas and wedding cookie: a very short almond butter biscuit, buried in powdered sugar and often scented with brandy or mastic. A whole clove is pressed into the top of each — an old symbol of the spices brought to the infant Christ, and a signal to remove it before eating that almost nobody follows.
It is the same family as russian tea cakes and the Spanish polvorones, and the differences are instructive.
What makes it work
- Clarified butter, and a lot of it. The traditional recipe uses far more butter than a shortbread and clarifies it first. Greek bakers whip the clarified butter alone for ten minutes before anything else goes in, until it is white and doubled — that whipping is the only leavening.
- Brandy or ouzo, a tablespoon or two. Alcohol evaporates fast in the oven and leaves the crumb more open.
- Bury them in sugar while hot, and again cold. A proper kourabies is served in a drift of powdered sugar, not merely dusted with it. Traditionally they are laid on a sugared tray, covered in more, and left overnight.
- Bake pale, at 160 °C. Any browning fights the white.
Ingredients
Makes about 36.
- 350 g clarified butter, softened to a paste
- 100 g powdered sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tbsp brandy, ouzo or Metaxa
- 1 tsp vanilla — see Pure vanilla extract
- 550 g all-purpose flour
- 5 g baking powder
- 3 g fine salt
- 200 g almonds, toasted and chopped
- 36 whole cloves, optional
- 400 g powdered sugar, for burying
Method
Whip the clarified butter alone at high speed for a full ten minutes, until it is white and looks like frosting. This step is the recipe.
Add the 100 g of powdered sugar and whip two minutes more, then the yolk, brandy and vanilla.
Fold in the flour, baking powder, salt and almonds by hand to a soft dough.
Shape 25 g pieces into crescents or domes, press a clove into each, and bake 160 °C / 325 °F for 20–22 minutes. They should stay ivory.
Sift a thick layer of powdered sugar over a tray. Lay the hot cookies on it, sift more sugar over until they disappear, and leave overnight.
Notes
- Melomakarona are the other half of a Greek Christmas tray — honey-syrup cookies, dark and wet, deliberately opposite in every way. Most households make both. See melomakarona.
- Mastic, a resin from Chios, is the traditional aromatic where brandy is not used; a quarter teaspoon ground with sugar is enough.
- Keeps a month. Re-bury in sugar before serving.
Elsewhere on the site
Method and theory: Cookie recipes · cookies · Almonds · baking fats
Nearby: melomakarona · russian tea cakes · koulourakia