Yasou! We made these with Anise Extract and grated lemon peel . . . No almonds. Also, did not flatten them but left them in a ball shape. I think the recipe came from the northern part of Greece . . . Thessaloniki . Thanx for Sharing your Recipe.
Yiassou!! Thanks for the comment… anise AND lemon zest? Hmmm.. that would be different, that’s for sure… No almonds… my cousin doesn’t do almonds in hers but I like the little extra texture…. And I have seen them as balls, but I find they are harder to eat. I prefer the flatter disks or the crescents personally, but to each their own… The origins are probably shrouded in history… they are so similar to so many other cookies… Mexican wedding cookies, Russian snowballs, Turkish qurabiye which is probably where the Greeks got the cookie from. Mom used to drizzle the hot cookies with ouzo before she covered them in icing sugar, but the anise seed oil was an adaptation and we love the strong flavour of the anise… much stronger than the ouzo was. I also love them with rose or orange blossom water, too… but the family prefer the anise. Thanks again for the comment and you are welcome for the recipe!! 😊
*How do I get the printed recipe? Hi Mary… thank you for your comment. It looks like I missed adding the ingredients in the comment box. Sorry about that. Here is the ingredient list. Enjoy!! Kourambiedes - Greek Shortbread with almonds and anise seed 1 lb unsalted butter, at room temp ½ c icing sugar 2 egg yolks 2 tsp anise oil or candy flavouring (not extract or ouzo…not strong enough) 3 c flour, or as needed to get a soft but not sticky dough ¾ c slivered almonds, toasted and roughly chopped Icing sugar, to cover Alas, I do not have a website for the recipes... Thank you again and good luck!! :)
Hi Kathy... you can use ouzo but it dissipates... if you want to use ouzo, and still have a nice taste, I would suggest you bake the cookies without any flavourings, and once they come out of the oven and you have them on their icing sugar, spritz them with the ouzo in a spray bottle or something like that. This is actually a traditional technique, especially if one is using orange blossom water or rose water. Yeah, I know all about those measurements.. hahaha, mom would use a saucer or side plate to measure flour etc, and a teacup for smaller things. Luckily, I watched her and measured her 'utensils' and got a good idea of how much they held. :)
Hi there ronyrefat, thank you for the comment and the suggestion. I will try to do this in future videos. Good luck with the recipes... For these cookies, here is the gram count... (I just googled these so hopefully they are close) 453.59 g butter 50 g icing sugar 10 ml anise oil 360 g flour, or as needed 100 g slivered almonds Good luck!! Let me know if you try them and how they came out!! Kali tihi!! (greek for good luck)
Hi there.... thanks for the comment. Did you not watch the video? The ingredients are listed at timestamp 1:52 This is how I presented the videos when I was first learning and I haven't had a chance to re-edit this with a comment box entry. Thanks again.
