Greece: Melomakarona Recipe (Greek Honey Cookies)

If your family is anything like mine, you are going to devour these delicious cookies from Greece!

Melomakarona - Greek Honey Cookies. Click here to download the full recipe printable from the resources page.

ingredients

• 4C high grade flour

• 1tsp baking powder

• 1tsp baking soda

• 1tsp ground cinnamon

• ¼ tsp ground clove

• ¼ tsp ground nutmeg

• 125mL freshly squeezed orange juice

• 125mL olive oil

• 125mL sunflower oil

• 50mL honey

• 100g caster sugar

• 1tsp vanilla extract

• zest of 1 orange

for the syrup

• 600g caster sugar

• 100mL honey

• 450mL water

• 1 stick of cinnamon

• 3 whole cloves

• 1 x 3cm piece lemon rind

for the garnish

• ½ C chopped walnuts

• 1tsp cinnamon

method

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc (350ºf). Line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, and ground nutmeg. Mix together with a fork.

3. In a separate bowl combine orange juice, oils, honey, water, sugar, vanilla extract and orange zest. Stir together until well mixed.

4. Add your wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until well incorporated.

5. Knead lightly with your hands. Place dough in a bowl and place, covered, in the fridge while you make the syrup.

6. For the syrup: Add all the syrup ingredients to a large saucepan. Bring to the boil.

7. Once the mixture starts boiling, reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 10 minutes.

8. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Remove cloves, cinnamon stick and lemon rind from the syrup.

9. Back to the cookies! Take the dough out of the fridge and start shaping the cookies by breaking off pieces of the dough and shaping into oval shapes, almost like a small egg. Place each cookie on the prepared baking tray.

10. Using a fork, press a cross-hatch pattern in the centre of each cookie, flattening the egg-shape slightly.

11. Bake for approximately 20 minutes until a light golden brown colour.

12. Remove the cookies from the oven and dunk in the cooled syrup for approximately 10 seconds per cookie. Place the cookies on a plate lined with a couple of paper towels to absorb the extra syrup. The texture of the cookies gets quite mushy once you dip them – but still delicious!!

13. Garnish the cookies with the chopped walnuts!

Prep time 15 minutes, cook time 20 minutes, makes 3 dozen

Click to download the recipe printable over at the resources library

Or...