Melomacarona- Holiday Cookie of Greece

Christmas is not Christmas without Melomacarona in Greece- these are crumbly syrup drenched cookies with orange and cinnamon and honey (the "Melo" in the name comes from "Μέλι" = honey). I made these once in 1990 and they were perfect. the recipe was written on a scrap of paper I lost, and I never ate one I liked as well, so I never bothered making them again until now. This is a hybrid of several recipes- taking what I liked of each, to make a cake like moist cookie sweet with cinnamon, filled with minced walnuts, and scented with orange and a little liquor. 

This is a project, but not a difficult one, and it makes a mountain of cookies, and the house smells fantastic for days afterwards. A nice plus- in a season of butter and eggs, this is a cookie vegans will love.

Syrup-

Boil together for 4-5 minutes, untilsugar is disolved:

3 C sugar

3 C water

half of an orange with its peel

4 whole cloves

3 cinnamon sticks

pinch salt

then add:

2/3 C honey

Let cool completely.

In a your largest bowl, blend-

1/3 C sugar

zest of 2 oranges

- until the oils are released and the sugar is like bright orange wet sand

then add:

1 C fine semolina

8 C all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 T cinnamon (if you just opened it and it's sweet and fresh. Otherwise 3)

nice pinch ground cloves

a few grinds of fresh nutmeg

In another bowl, blend:

1 2/3 C fresh orange juice

1 C vegetable oil

1 C good olive oil

3-4 tablespoons brandy or whiskey or whatever you like

Pour into the dry mixture and blend quickly and very lightly with your hands. If you over-mix or kneed it, the oil will seep out if the dough. Be quick, decisive, casual.

Chop well:

2 C walnuts

and add:

a little cinnamon, a spoon full of sugar, a little booze to moisten

Now take a piece the size of a walnut, flatten it into a disc, and put a little nut mixture int he middle. Seal the dough around it into an oval, and mark with a cake cutter or fork or anything to make decorative indentations to catch the syrup.

Bake at 180 C/375 F for 22-25 minutes, until deep golden. They will lighten first, then darken again. Hot from the oven, put them into the syrup- bottom side down, then after a minute turn them over and leave them ten minutes. (Most recipes say ten seconds). Then let them drain on a rack.

They will be wet and sticky but still crispy at first, but the syrup will gradually seep into every crumb.

More on holidays:

Kourabiedes are butter rich and light as a snowflake

Christmas in Greece