Kourabiedes…

The dessert of Christmas for me..If I had to choose between Kourabiedes and the other Christmas favourite cookie, Melomakarona I would say that I like them both equally but I would start with the Kourabiedes and finish with the Melomakarona.

This is because I believe the buttery Kourabiedes become soft with the winter dampness and their dust of icing sugar dampens and starts to spoil their delicious enjoyment.

On the contrary the Melomakarona become tastier as the days pass and their aroma becomes stronger. They are generally better the longer they are left.

Strangely my mother used not getting Kourabiedes as a punishment but not Melomakarona when I was a child so we know what she preferred!

So I decided to create my own recipe for kourabiedes which would be a little different and showcase them a little bit more. Looking through videos on YouTube for inspiration, I reached the channel of Bruno Albouze. A Frenchman who lives in the U.S. and I like and trust his recipes a lot. Many Greek and foreign chefs have copied his recipes.

He had some recipes for biscuits which I really liked because they reworked the idea of what a biscuit should contain. One of the things he likes to use is caramelised almonds in his biscuits.

I thought what a wonderful idea for my kourabiedes! So I started to make them!

I was really impressed with the idea of using them and I will never make kourabiedes again without caramelising the almonds!

I also tried “filling” them with a ganache of white chocolate.

Taste wise they weren’t bad but as they already had the almonds in them putting the ganache made them break up annoyingly!

I spoke to my friend, Chef Giorgos Tsoulis , on the phone for a chat about what’s happening and mentioned the chocolate I tried to use and he told me the best way would be to make little balls of ganache then to put them in the freezer and use them as I make the cookies- but it would have taken ages and to tell you the truth I couldn’t be bothered! You can try it -it’s not difficult if you have the time and the interest to see what happens! :)

Well.. if you haven’t ever made Kourabiedes yet, you should! And if you have made them before, try making them like this as I think they give an extra lift to the usual recipe for this dessert.

Also I should mention that I used only goat and sheep butter because I love the taste. If you don’t want such a buttery taste you could put half cow’s butter or all cow’s butter if you wish -it’s a personal thing..

Just don’t EVER put margarine or I will personally have to kill you :)

And as I will be using the caramelised almonds in other recipes I have uploaded the recipe separately on the site…

The link is here :

The basic recipe for the kourabiedes is my mother’s.. and unfortunately I have lost her recipe for Melomakarona…