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Kourabiedes

Category: Cookies

Author: The Savvybearcat

Date: 1/1/2007

Rating:

(2.0) by 2 users

Ingredients:

2 cup Butter, unsalted
1 cup Sugar, powdered
3 Egg yolks
3 tbsp Brandy
2 tsp Vanilla extract
6 cup Flour
1/2 cup Almonds (blanched), chopped
1 lb Sugar, powdered (one package)

Instructions:

Beat the butter with the sugar until it becomes fluffy. Add the egg
yolks one by one, beating continuously. Add the brandy and vanilla.

Blend in the almonds and the flour, a cup at a time. Use enough
flour to get a firm dough (it may take a bit more or less than the
amount mentioned in the ingredients list). Use your hands to do the
mixing, as an electric mixer will be useless after the first two or
three cups of flour have been added. Place the dough in the
refrigerator for at least one hour.

Shape the dough into balls, about one inch in diameter, flatten them
and place on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 20
minutes.

Remove from the oven. Roll each cookie (while it is still hot) in the
powdered sugar and put it back on the cookie sheet. Repeat this step
once more, so that you get a thicker coating.

Place the coated cookies on a platter, liberally sprinkling each
layer and the bottom of the platter with powdered sugar. When you are
done, there shouldn't be any sugar left. Let them cool and they are
ready to eat!

NOTES:

* Traditional Greek Christmas cookies coated with powdered sugar --
This is one of the two kinds of confection that are traditionally
consumed in large quantities in Greece during the holiday season (the
other is melomacarona). As a quick lesson in greek, "kourabiedes"
(pronounced "kou-ra-bi-ETH-es", is the plural of the word "kourabies"
(kou-ra-bi-ES). Now all you need to enjoy them is the recipe. I got
this one from a Greek cookbook and translated it into English.

* The cookbook suggests the following variations: using ouzo or
scotch instead of brandy, and almond extract instead of vanilla
extract, but I have not tried any of them. Also, putting granulated
instead of powdered sugar in the dough didn't seem to affect the
recipe, there's so much sugar in it, that you couldn't tell the
difference anyway.

* The cookbook also suggested using twice the amount of sugar for
coating. This is obviously too much, but it should make you realize
that you must really be liberal with the sugar!

: Difficulty: Easy to moderate.
: Time: 30 minutes preparation, one hour refrigeration, 20 minutes
baking. : Precision: approximate measurement OK.

: Kriton Kyrimis
: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
: princeton!kyrimis kyrimis@princeton.edu

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