Melomakarona and Kourabiedes

Christmas time without sweets is not good! So, i need to learn something about the greek traditional sweets for this period. The girls will tell me about them and tech me how to make them!
The most known traditional sweets for the Christmas and New Year time are Melomakarona (small honey cakes) and Kourabiedes (sugared buns).
Marina and Stella gave me the recipe. So, lets make MELOMAKARONA!

Ingredients

1 ½ cup of olive oil

½ cup of butter

1 ¼ cup of sugar

grated orange peel (1 orange)

¼ cup of brandy

¾ of a cup orange juice

a teaspoon of baking powder

a teaspoon of powder soda mixed with flour

flour as much as it is needed to be a little tough

Spices: 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and ½ teaspoon of clove

Instructions

We mix all the ingredients together till it becomes an even mixture. This mixture should be neither soft nor tough. We take in our hands a small amount of the pastry and we give it an oval shape.

We spread some oil on the baking tray and then we place them on it.

We bake them at 180^o C for 30-40 minutes.

When they are ready we let them get cooler and we prepare the syrup.

Ingredients for the syrup

2 cups of honey

2 cups of sugar

2 cups of water

some drops of lemon juice

We boil the syrup for 5 minutes. Then we dip the honey cakes in the syrup for a few seconds.

When they are ready we lay them on a big plate and we put some grated nuts on them.

Some people prefer them covered with chocolate!!! Yummyyyyyyyyy!!!

Fotini and Vasiliki will teach me now to make the other traditional sweet, KOURABIEDES!!!

Ingredients

½ kg fresh butter

1 egg

1 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of baking powder

some grated orange peel

1 teaspoon of vanilla spice

1 cup of chopped nuts or almonds

8 cups of flour

½ kg powder sugar

Instructions

We blend butter and sugar together. We add the egg, the grated orange peel, the nuts/almond, the vanilla spice, the baking powder and finally the flour. We mix together till the mixture becomes even.

We give oval shape and put them on the baking tray after we have spread some oil on it.

We bake at 180^o C for 30-40 minutes.

When they are ready, we let them get cooler and finally cover them with the powder sugar.

I thought we had finished with sweets but... It's always good to have MORE sweets! Argiri will teach me to make DIPLES!!!

Ingredients

For the dough:

• 10 eggs
• 1 kg all-purpose flour
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tot liqueur or ouzo
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

For the syrup:

• 1 lt water
• 1 kg sugar
• 1 kg honey
• 2 tbl oil

For the topping:

• 250g walnuts, finely chopped
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Instructions

1)Egg mixture:...
Break the eggs into a bowl and beat.  Add the liquor of choice and the lemon juice, followed by the sugar and salt, and beat everything well together. Sift the flour in a bowl but keep some of it aside. Make a pothole in the middle of the flour and pour in the egg mixture. Knead the dough and if it is needed, add some of the flour that you kept aside, until you get a firm dough.
Wrap the dough with cling film and let rest for an hour.

2)In a pot, bring a large quatity of oil to heat. Cut the dough in big round sections and cut these again in half.

3)Take one of the slices, flatten a bit between your palms, and run it through the pasta maker at No.2 setting (thick).

4) Run it through the pasta maker one more time, at the same setting.

5) Set the paste maker to No.4 setting (medium), and run the dough strip through, twice.

6) Set the pasta maker to No.6 setting (fine) and run the dough strip through twice.  You will now have a long and thin strip of dough.

7) In the meantime, spread out a clean sheet on a table.  Lay the dough strips on the sheet as you prepare them.  Keep them covered with another clean sheet, which must be slightly damp, so as to prevent the dough from drying out.  Cut up each strip into long rectangles.

8) Take one of the rectangles you have cut.  Pull it open a little with your hands and immediately place it in the hot oil.  Quickly turn it over.  Spear its one end with a fork and twirl it around the fork twines to form a cylindrical shape.  Work swiftly!  (please watch video)

9) Using the fork, keep them submerged in the hot oil, and it wont take long  till they turn a light golden colour.  They are then ready to take out and place on a tray to drain off any excess oil.

10) Once all the Diples are made, prepare the syrup.  Bring the sugar and water to boil in a large pot and let boil for a couple of minutes.  Then add the honey and the oil.  Oil is added to the syrup to ensure the Diples retain their crispiness.

11) Skim off any froth that appears as the syrup boils.  When the syrup has cooked for a few minutes, turn off the heat, but do not remove the pot.

12) Dip the Diples, one by one, into the hot syrup, turn them over, and then remove them onto a baking sheet.

13) Combine the finely chopped nuts and cinnamon.  Sprinkle onto each layer of Diples.