Baking the Greek way...for Sweet Saturdays

"Yum" ACEO

Mother’s day is right around the corner and it has me thinking about and missing my mom who passed away several years ago after a short illness.  Recently while searching through my recipe books for ideas for Easter dinner I was surprised when a scrap of yellowed paper fell out onto the floor.  I discovered that it contained the handwritten recipe for Koulourakia (Greek Easter Cookies). Wow, I found my mom's cookie recipe one week late but just in time for Mother's day.

Now let me be clear here, most Greeks don’t write down their recipes.  It’s all up there in the cranium and you learn by doing.  So when I say recipe, I mean that written on this aged scrap of paper was a carefully printed title and a list of ingredients. What you did with it was up to you.

Cooking the way I learned it from my mother is not an exact science. She didn’t even own a measuring cup.  The cup she drank her coffee from each morning was good enough, thank you very much.  And you do stir your coffee with a teaspoon, right? Somehow I know some fancy TV chef is cringing at my very words.  They are thinking, “How can you bake without exactness? “  Let me say right now that whatever was baked, roasted, fried, or stirred in this Greek inspired kitchen tasted, well, heavenly. Somehow I think Greek thinking can be summed up in two words…. no fear.  It will all come out ok, and if it wasn’t exactly what you were aiming for, well then its something new altogether.  Opa!

But I digress. When I was a child, every Easter we all set out to help my mother create these tasty sugar type cookies. In my family there are many variations to the look of a Kolourakia. Most cooks roll them into long ropes and then braid or twist them into the traditional shapes. We on the other hand, have always tried to tweak the usual, with circles and twists and braids and curls.  Our cookies were like snowflakes like snowflakes in the fact that no two were ever alike. They became an artistic expression of ourselves.  Everyone tried to outdo the others in ways that were, well unconventional.

Everyone became a baker, from boys to girls, men to women. It didn’t matter if you were 2 or a 102.  We all got to make our very own cookies and we all held dibs on our particular creations. My mother’s more traditional looking cookies were carefully placed in Tupperware containers for sharing with visiting friends and relatives.

Koulourakia seemingly lasted forever so it didn’t matter if we made a few thousand.  I think they may even have a few in the Smithsonian’s natural history museum on display. (kidding!)

Want to make some?  Well, what follows is the easy peasy listing of ingredients, the rest, of course is up to you.  Maybe baking a cake is more to your liking?

Koulourakia

¾ lb. butter (melted)

2 cups sugar

7 eggs separated

½ c. orange juice

Sesame seeds

4tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

6 c. sifted flour

3 tbsp. vanilla extract

3 tbsp. lemon juice

Ok, I will take pity on you and print up what I know to be the rest of the story…

Mix the sifted flour, baking powder, and baking soda, in bowl.  Mix in the melted butter.  In another bowl beat egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add orange juice and vanilla extract gradually.  Beat egg whites and combine with the wet ingredients.  Add wet ingredients to flour mixture.  Add lemon juice.  Knead well.  Pinch off pieces of dough and roll into desired shapes (braids are traditional) roll in sesame seeds.  Brush with milk.  Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes till lightly browned. 

Makes a ton…8 dozen cookies so you are free to halve this recipe!!


Why not visit Sweet Saturdays and join in the fun?  http://dianaevans.blogspot.com/2011/04/sweet-saturdays-week-005.html

P.S.  My Mac is still my best friend!  It wasn't him after it, it was the internet service being squirrelly, all better now.  :-)