Melomakarona Christmas Cookies
Melomakarona are ancient and traditional cookies with honey eaten in Greece during Christmas.
Ingredients
- 800 grams Flour
- 20 grams Baking flour
- 200 ml Olive oil extra virgin
- 100 ml Sunflower oil
- 150 grams Confectionary sugar
- 200 ml Orange juice
- ½ tsp Baking soda
- 1 Orange zest
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- ½ tsp Ground cloves
- 50 ml Cretan raki (tsikoudia) (you can replace it with Metaxas or another type of cognac)
- 150 grams Walnuts or pistachios finely chopped
For the syrup
- 600 ml Water
- 500 grams Sugar
- 1 Orange zest
- 5-6 Cloves
- 1 stick Cinnamon
- 100 grams Cretan honey
Instructions
For the Melomakarona
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees.
- In a bowl, mix the sugar with the oils until the sugar is diluted.
- In a separate bowl, add the baking soda to the orange juice and raki, mix, and set aside.
- Pour the remaining ingredients together in a large bowl and lightly mix.
- Add the other two mixtures (the sugar with the oil and the orange juice with baking soda mixtures) slowly into the dry ingredients and knead well. The more you knead, the lighter and fluffier the dough will be, this is something we want!
- Shape the dough into the traditional oblong shape of melomakarona, but don’t make them too big because they will double in size once baked.
- For the same reason, make sure you leave enough space between them when you place them in the baking tray.
- Bake them for 20-25 minutes or until they turn a light brown.
- Remove from oven and let them cool well. When they have cooled well, prepare the syrup.
For the Syrup
- Mix all the ingredients except for the honey together and boil them for 5-6 minutes.
- Remove from flame and mix in honey.
- Slowly dip each cooled melomakarono, one by one, into the syrup and place on a platter.
- Add the remaining syrup on top and sprinkle with the chopped walnuts or pistachios.
Notes
Traditional recipes with this amount of dough usually yield 40 to 50 medium melomakarona, depending on size.
- 40 cookies → ~240 kcal per cookie
- 50 cookies → ~190 kcal per cookie
Nutrition
Calories: 240kcal
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
