MELOMAKARONA with a RICH ORANGE FLAVOUR!!!

Merry Christmas one and all! Here is a very appropriate post for Christmas Day: a brand new recipe for melomakarona. I made them on Christmas Eve, and as I was waiting for them to come out of the oven, it started to snow. Beautiful Snow! I considered it to be a surprising, blissful miracle. We were having an uncommonly warm winter; however, nature changed her mind about our toasty temperatures and gave us a perfect Christmas present by dusting our lawns with a light coating of snow. For just one brief moment, baking as I was, I imagined that each lawn, all over the neighbourhood, had been sprinkled with powdered sugar! 

The snow continued its soft descent ... Standing at the counter, in front of my kitchen window, I sprinkled crushed walnuts on the cookies as I watched the snowflakes fall, ephemeral Christmas Eve snowflakes.

Merry Christmas to all, and may you have a safe, loving and peaceful Christmas Day. Keep the feeling of love and the hope of peace in your hearts all year long. Come on, if I can do it, so can you! After all, it's not so hard; there aren't too many days left in the year. Right? Oh dear, was this joke necessary?

Melomakarona are the quintessential Greek Christmas cookie. I have some information on their history in the other melomakarona recipe posted on this blog.  The recipe on this page is one I tried for the first time, and as it turned out, it was a great recipe. It even got the approval of my mother, who is on the stingy side with her compliments. It's a recipe based on one by Greek master pastry chef Stelios Parliaros. It was well worth making. The cookies turned out crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, they had the fragrant aroma and taste of oranges, and the syrup in which they were dipped made them really delicious. This is a sophisticated version of melomakarona, with prominent orange and honey-flavoured notes. I loved it, loved it, loved it, but I also love my other melomakarona recipe posted here, which contains a heavier dose of spices. I suppose that from one Christmas to the other, I will have to alternate between these two recipes. 

Chef Parliaros lives in Athens, where he occasionally makes TV appearances and where he markets his concoctions in the several patisserie shops he owns. He is a highly praised French-trained pastry chef. He is also very good at teaching his craft. I watch his demonstrations on YouTube, and he inspires me. 

I gathered the information for this recipe, translated it, got the ingredients, and made the melomakarona. Near the end of my post I will have a link for the YouTube demonstration of chef's melomakarona. It's in Greek, so you may not understand what he is saying, but you will see how the chef moulds the cookies, which I think is an important demonstration, especially for me, because I have trouble making decently shaped melomakarona.  

The most important piece of advice the chef gives is to mix the dough by hand and to work in gentle, light strokes. In this way, the dough will stay fluffy, and the oil contained in the melomakarona will not leak out during baking. If the oil leaks out, the cookies will turn out dry. You want a cookie that is crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. Working quickly and softly should provide that result. Another piece of advice given is to have the syrup cold and the melomakarona hot when we dip them in the syrup. Chef is very insistent about that.  So here we go:  

First, make the syrup.  This can be made the day before, as it needs to be cold when used. This recipe makes an excellent syrup!

Ingredients:

2 cups water

3 cups sugar

3 sticks of cinnamon 

1 cup honey (use thyme honey if available, because it has a strong flavour. Orange blossom honey can also be used, but in my opinion, it's one of the sweetest types of honey available - overly sweet - therefore, I don't use it).

the peel from 2 medium oranges

1/2 cup of orange juice

Directions:

• Into a pot, add the water, the sugar, the orange peel, the orange juice and the cinnamon sticks. Mix the ingredients with a spoon and stop mixing once the syrup goes over the heat. The reason for not mixing the syrup as it cooks is that the sugar it contains might crystallise.
• Place the pot on the stove over medium-high heat, let the syrup come to a boil, and then turn down the heat. Cook for 2 minutes and remove from the heat.  
• Add the honey and mix.
• Let the syrup cool down and then transfer it to a wide container with a lid.  Cover it, and let it get cold. 

The melomakarona are made next.  No need to use a mixer; this should all be done by hand. Chef weighed everything, and so did I. Where possible, I converted the quantities into cup measurements. 

Ingredients:

2 cups freshly squeezed orange juice (or use the best quality store-bought juice), weight is 400 grams

3 cups sunflower oil or mild olive oil, weight is 530 grams

5 tablespoons butter, melted in the microwave

1/4 cup powdered sugar (powdered sugar mixes well and helps to add colour while baking)

1 teaspoon baking soda

2  teaspoons cinnamon

1/2  teaspoon ground cloves

zest from one orange

about 10 cups (to weigh 1,200 grams) of all-purpose flour.  There is no need to sift the flour.

walnuts, chopped

honey to use while layering 

Directions:

• In a deep container, add all the wet ingredients, including the melted butter.

• To that, add the powdered sugar and the spices.

• Mix the wet ingredients.

• Add all of the flour along with the baking soda. Mix with your hands gently, starting from the middle of the bowl and progressing toward the outside.  Don't use a mixer, it will destroy this dough. Stop mixing as soon as the liquid is incorporated with the flour and the dough begins to form. The dough will have a wonderful aroma.

• Shape the cookies into ovals and then score lines on their surface with a fork.

• Alternately, you can place them on a rack and roll them to make decorative grooves.

• The lines and grooves give character to the cookie and also help to hold in the syrup. There is a demonstration of how to shape them on the YouTube video below.

• Place the cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets and bake them at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes, depending on the oven. When done, they should have a dark golden colour.

• As soon as they come out of the oven, drop them in the cold syrup. Work in small batches of three or four cookies. Turn them over with a large spoon and leave them in the syrup for about one minute. If you leave them in for too long, they will become saturated with syrup (that's not necessarily bad, they do get soggy and become really sweet, but they still taste okay).

• Remove the melomakarona from the syrup, place them on a rack and let them drain off any excess syrup.

• Prepare a serving platter by spreading a little honey and some walnuts on its surface. 

• Add a layer of melomakarona and then repeat the same procedure, layering honey, walnuts and cookies, ending with a light layer of honey and walnuts.

• This recipe makes about 70 really delicious, honey-orange-cinnamon flavoured and fragrant cookies.

melomakarona demonstration by Chef Parliaros (YouTube)

Some notes:
*If you cannot find oranges that are flavourful and juicy, buy a good quality prepared orange juice.  

*If you watch the full video, you will see the chef stuff some of the cookies with walnuts. This is a well-known variation. I made half of my melomakarona without stuffing, while I stuffed the other half with walnut pieces.

 

*Melomakarona can be kept fresh for 10 to 15 days. 

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.