Melomakarona (Greek Christmas Honey Cookies)
Melomakarona are the most iconic Greek winter holiday honey cookies that are highly addictive and a fantastic addition to your Christmas table.
Ingredients
For the cookies
- 500 g/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 125 g/½ cup freshly squished orange juice
- 250 g/1 cup sunflower oil or mild olive oil
- 50 g/3 tbsp cognac
- 85 g/⅜ cup sugar
- 2 tbsp/12 g orange zest
- ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 75 g/½ cup fine semolina
For the syrup
- 300 g/1½ cups granulated sugar
- 400 g/1½ cups water
- 100 g/5 tbsp honey
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 5 whole cloves
- ½ fresh orange in slices
Toppings
- 115 g/1 cup walnuts
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoon honey
Instructions
Prepare the syrup
- In a pot, over medium/high heat, add all the ingredients for the syrup, except the honey.
- Bring the mixture to a boil, and keep boiling it for 4 minutes until the sugar has dissolved.
- Remove from the heat, pour the honey and stir to dissolve. Set aside to cool.
Prepare the melomakarona
- Weight the ingredients. In a large bowl, beat the olive oil with the sugar until it dissolves. Add the orange juice and zest, the brandy, the ground cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Lastly add the baking soda.
- When the mixture starts to foam, sift the flour, semolina, and baking powder into the liquid mixture.
- Stir the ingredients together and then using your hands knead the dough, until everything is combined and the dough is soft and smooth.
- Do not overwork the dough because it will become tough, and the oil may start to seep out, resulting in a soggy cookie. Rest the dough for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven at 190°C (375°F) and line two baking trays with parchment paper. Set aside. Start shaping the cookies by using about 30g of dough, walnut-sized pieces, into a round or traditionally into an oblong shape.
- Place on the baking trays and poke them lightly with a fork and make some holes, or press them lightly into a cooling rack, not all the way down to create some holes.
- Bake for about 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown. If your oven doesn’t bake two trays at a time, bake them separately.
- When ready, take them out of the oven and dip them into the cold syrup, in batches, for 30 seconds, flipping them on both sides. The alternative is to soak cold melomakarona in warm syrup.
- Use a slotted spoon to take them out of the syrup, place them in a platter, drizzle with honey, sprinkle with chopped walnuts and cinnamon.
- Enjoy ;)
Notes
Choose a narrow-bottom tall pot, when making the syrup. The syrup level should be high enough to cover the whole melomakarono when you soak it in the pot.
Do not fall into the trap of adding extra flour. The dough can be sticky but after resting it for a few minutes it will easily be pliable. Adding too much flour results in too tough melomakarona.
Serve melomakarona with any topping of your choice. Traditionally topped with chopped walnuts, honey, and some cinnamon but if you have an allergy you can use pistachios or almonds.
In some Greek regions, it is typical not only to garnish but also stuff melomakarona with chopped walnuts.
A recent trend is to dip melomakarona in chocolate.
Melomakarona will last throughout the Christmas Holidays provided that they are properly stored. By properly I mean that first, they need to cool down completely, on cooling racks, at room temperature. Then, store them in an airtight container, or seal them with cling film.
It is better to store melomakarona in an airtight container, in a single layer, so that they don't stick together because of the syrup.
Do not store melomakarona in the fridge because they will become hard.
You can freeze melomakarona for up to 3 months, in an airtight container. Bake them, let them cool completely, but do not dip them in syrup. You can soak them in warm syrup after thawing them.
Gluten-Free option: replace semolina with fine polenta and flour with 1 to 1 cup gluten-free flour to make gluten-free melomakarona.
Vegan option: Replace the honey with, vegan honey, maple syrup, or agave nectar. You can always soak the cookies into a simple sugar syrup flavored with cinnamon, cloves and, orange or with 1 teaspoon of rosewater or vanilla extract in it.