Greek Traditional Christmas Cookies, are very popular and baked at most households in Greece.
During the month of December Greeks are looking forward to buy, bake, eat or treat the typical Christmas sweets.
One of the typical Christmas cookies you can find in every bakery, patisserie or household, are the “melomakarona”.
What is a melomakarono ?
The melomakarono (Greek: μελομακάρονο plural: μελομακάρονα, melomakarona) is an egg-shaped Greek desert, like a cookie. Along with the « kourabies » it is a traditional dessert prepared primarily during the Christmas holiday season.
Typical ingredients of the melomakarono are flour or semolina, sugar, orange zest and/or fresh juice, cognac (or similar beverage), cinnamon and olive oil. During rolling they are often filled with ground walnuts. After baking they are immersed for a few seconds in hot syrup made of honey and sugar dissolved in water. Finally, they are decorated with ground, as well as bigger, pieces of walnut. Dark chocolate-covered melomakarona are also a more recent variation of the traditional recipe.
Melomakarona are not difficult to make and you can find many recipes on the internet as well as videos showing you how to prepare them.
It is also a nice activity to do together with kids.
Of course, the Omilo-team also loves those cookies. Take a look :
A lot of Omilo students have baked those delicious Greek Christmas cookies with success!
Impress your family and/or friends and treat them with self-made melomakarona! Good luck.
A recipe to make your own melomakarona
TIP! Click on the button on top of the page, and read the recipe also in Greek, while listening to the Greek Audio.
That way you can improve your listening skills, and build your Greek Vocabulary
INGREDIENTS
2 cups oil
1 cup sugar
1 cup orange juice
1 cup fine semolina
1 kilo flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
Lemon and Orange zest
Simple syrup: (In a pot, mix together 1 cup each of water, honey and sugar and
bring to boil while stirring constantly.)
Crushed walnuts
Preheat oven to 200c
1. Beat oil well with a mixer, then add the sugar, both zests, orange juice, semolina, and then, a little at a time, the flour mixed with the baking soda.
2. Form the dough into small shapes, as the pastries will get quite big while baking. Make sure the oven is hot before baking, otherwise the pastries will flatten. Bake for about 30 minutes until pastries are firm and golden brown.
3. When completely cooled, arrange in rows in a pan and pour warm syrup over them. Sprinkle with crushed walnuts.
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Tip ! Feel like visiting Greece soon? Wouldn’t it be great if you could go to the bakery and order the vasilopita cake and more baked goods in Greek?
Discover how you order like a local, in a Greek bakery or patisserie and how you can start communicating in Greek with the multi-media eBook “The Greek Bakery, Pastry Shop and sandwich bar”!
Find out more at https://masaresi.com/product/greeklesson-bakery/
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While baking your cookies, it is the ideal time to also listen to a Greek Christmas PODCAST Story,
while improving your listening skills 🙂 !
Click below and enjoy our Podcast episode, for intermediate levels in Greek
It includes a Notebook with the written text,
English translations and extra information about Greek Christmas in Greece.
What are you waiting for, it is FREE, FUN and USEFUL.
Click below and listen to our Podcast Story;
A Magical Christmas – From Sweden to Nafplion
