MELOMAKARONA (HONEY CHRISTMAS COOKIES) Vegan.

Christmas time fills the house with the pleasing aroma of freshly baked cookies. In Greek homes, centre stage in the cookie department belongs to melomakarona. They are the quintessential Christmas cookie for Greeks, a concoction flavoured with orange, lemon, cinnamon, cloves, and honey.

There is some evidence that a version of these cookies originated in antiquity. Melomakarona are also called phoenikia, and the latter word suggests that they probably originated with the Phoenicians, a seafaring people who lived in regions of Asia Minor and were antiquity's best-known traders.

Etymologically, melomakarona is comprised of the words meli + makaroni. Meli means honey in Greek, which fits since the cookies are dipped in honey. Makaroni or macaroni, is a word of Greek-Latin origin, whose root means a doughy substance, or a substance which is kneaded or macerated. Therefore, in its most basic form, the word melomakarona means a piece of dough that is dipped in honey.* It's amazing to think what a long history these cookies have, and how they evolved into the present-day holiday treats.

I made a batch of melomakarona the other day by using my standby recipe. The cookies have a good crunch and an excellent flavour. You'll notice that the recipe calls for semolina: 

Semolina (simigdali / σιμιγδάλι) is available in coarse (chondró χονδρό), or fine (psiló ψιλό varieties). It gives a stability and subtle crunch to the melomakarona. This is necessary because melomakarona are dipped in syrup after baking. Semolina is made from a species of wheat colloquially known as Durum Wheat, a hard wheat with a high protein content. The cereal known as Cream of Wheat is made with semolina, as is pasta, and as are couscous, bulgur, tabbouleh, and several types of puddings. The question is, why use a soft flour like cake flour, and then combine it with semolina, which is a hard-type flour. Well, this combination makes for the soft plus crunchy texture of the melomakarona. You won’t regret buying semolina, either by seeking out a supermarket that carries it or by ordering it over the Internet.  

The general rule for all Greek “syrup sweets” is to make the syrup first, so that it can cool while everything else is being prepared. The process is always to pour cold syrup over the sweets when they are still hot from the oven. A good option is to make the syrup a day ahead of baking.

I like the taste of these melomakarona, and I recommend this version wholeheartedly.

Ingredients: 
(makes about 50 cookies)

We will start by making the syrup!

Ingredients for the honey syrup:

2 cups granulated sugar

2 ½ cups water

The peel from 1 large orange 

One orange cut in half (do not use the peeled or zested orange)

The juice of half a lemon

2 sticks of cinnamon

2 branches of thyme

2 cups honey 

To make the melomakarona honey syrup:

In a saucepan, mix the sugar and water. Add the orange peel, the orange halves, the cinnamon sticks and the thyme branches. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes without mixing (mixing as the syrup cooks may cause the sugar to crystallise). 

Remove from the heat.

Add the honey and mix. Let the honey syrup cool for an hour. Strain the syrup and allow it to continue cooling. 

Ingredients for the Melomakarona:

 

½ cup good vegetable oil

¾ cup mild olive oil (can use olive oil exclusively as long as it’s a mild/mellow variety)

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice

3 cups cake flour (if cake flour is not available, use all-purpose flour)

1 extra cup of cake flour

2  teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup brandy (Grand Marnier is the best option)

1 and 1/2 cups fine semolina (not coarse semolina)

zest of 2 oranges

zest of one lemon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon salt

For the topping:

1 cup of coarsely ground walnuts mixed with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1 teaspoon of ground cloves.

Directions:

• Cover two or three cookie sheets with parchment paper.

• Preheat the over to 350° F 

• Do not use an electric mixer because they are powerful and will cause the oil to leach out, thereby creating a dry dough. Use good old-fashioned bowls and a whisk, a spatula, and your hands.

• In a large bowl, sift the three cups of cake flour with the baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

• Combine the powdered sugar with the oil. Whisk well. Add the orange juice, orange zest, lemon zest, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, and ground allspice. Whisk well until combined. 

• Add this wet mixture to the flour mixture. Begin to gently combine. Continue mixing gently while adding the brandy and semolina.

• Turn the mixture onto a surface floured with some of the extra cake flour. Knead gently, adding more flour if needed, to obtain a soft dough.

• Preheat the oven to 350° F.

• Take tablespoonfuls of dough and shape them into oval cookies about 2 & 1/2 inches long. Press them on the top with the back of a fork to create horizontal lines. The grooves made with the fork are decorative and also help to hold onto the syrup.

• Place the melomakarona on the prepared cookie sheets. As soon as a cookie sheet is full, place it in the oven. It's important that the melomakarona don't stay on the counter for too long. If they do, they'll begin to dry out. Bake for about 25 minutes. Meanwhile, continue shaping cookies. 

To finish the cookies:

• Place about 3 cookies that are still hot from the oven onto a large slotted spoon. Dip them in the syrup. Don't let them soak for too long. About half to maybe a full minute is plenty. The cookies should absorb some syrup yet still remain crunchy.

• Place the melomakarona on a serving dish and sprinkle the walnut topping over them. The topping will stick to the honey.

• Let cool before serving. 

• The melomakarona should keep for fifteen days. They are good for a longer time, but they'll taste drier because the oil will begin to evaporate. 

*Source:
http://www.24grammata.com/?p=6966 with a section written in Greek, and a section in English borrowed from "An Etymology Dictionary of the English Language, by Walter W. Skeat, 1893."
Below is the English entry:

MACARONI, MACCARONI, a paste made of wheat flour. (Ital.,—L.?) ‘He doth learn to make strange sauces, to eat anchovies, maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli, and caviare;’ Ben Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, A. ii (Mercury). ‘Macaroni, gobbets or lumps of boyled paste,’ &c.; Minsheu, ed. 1627.—O. Ital. maccaroni, ‘a kinde of paste meate boiled in broth, and drest with butter, cheese, and spice; Florio. The mod. Ital. spelling is maccheroni, properly the plural of maccherone, used in the sense of a ‘macarone’ biscuit. β. Of somewhat doubtful origin; but prob. to be connected with Gk. μακαρία, a word used by Hesychius to denote βρῶμα ἐκ ζωμοῦ καὶ ἀλφίτων, a mess of broth and pearl-barley, a kind of porridge. This word is derived by Curtius (i. 405) from Gk. μάσσειν, to knead, of which the base is μακ-; cf. Gk. μᾶζα, dough, Russ. muka, flour, meal. γ. Similarly the Ital. macaroni is prob. from O. Ital. maccare, ‘to bruise, to batter, to pester;’ Florio. And, again, the Ital. maccare is from a Lat. base mac-, to knead, preserved in the deriv. macerare, to macerate, reduce to pulp. See Macerate. δ. Thus the orig. sense seems to have been ‘pulp;’ hence anything of a pulpy or pasty nature. Der. Macaron-ic, from F. macaronique, ‘a macaronick, a confused heap or huddle of many severall things’ (Cot.), so named from macaroni, which was orig. a mixed mess, as described by Florio above. The name macaroni, according to Haydn, Dict. of Dates, was given to a poem by Theophilo Folengo (otherwise Merlinus Coccaius) in 1509; macaronic poetry is a kind of jumble, often written in a mixture of languages.