So yet again the EU crew chose a food category that I really have no experience with. Baklava and eating at the Mad Greek in Baker, CA once is the extent of my Greek food influence. So, I immediately began searching out desserts... this is my specialty, after all. I had about five different ones that I was tempted to try, but I narrowed it down to three. I chose two cookies and one milk pie. Let's start with the first cookie that I tackled: on Friday, with 4 kids running around, I began the process of making powdered sugar dome cookies, otherwise known as Kourabiethes.
These cookies were super easy to make. A little expensive, if you don't have a cognac drinker in the house as a bottle of Hennessy is $24 and you only need 1 1/2 tablespoons. As luck has it, Tele likes to drink a little Hennessy on occasion, so it all worked out. Now, it seems to me that most Greek recipes were designed to feed an entire army, so I had to halve this recipe. If I knew how to split an egg in half I would have sized it down further, but since I don't have a laser egg yolk/white splitter, I stuck to just half the recipe, which still produced 30 large Kourabiethes.
Apart from sizing the recipe down I did not make any other changes to the recipe except omitting the rose water as it was optional anyhow.
Now a photo journey of the process of making Kourabiethes.
Creamed butter and sugar.
1 1/2 tablespoons Hennessy.
Here is the Hennessy after the baking powder was added.
I had sliced almonds in the fridge so I just chopped them up and roasted them in the oven on 350 degrees until they just started to darken in color.
The almonds have been added into the creamed butter and sugar along with the cognac/baking powder mixture, eggs and vanilla.
The dough after about 1/2 of the flour has been mixed in and another bit has been added.
One more addition of flour to go.
The dough is now ready to be formed into little domes.
Start by scooping out a small mound of dough, such as this.
Then begin pressing the dough together into a ball.
Now use your palm to form the top into a dome shape and flatten the bottom of the cookie.
I found that for me the base of the cookie need to be about the size of the middle of my palm.
And that 2 of my fingers was about 3/4 of an inch tall so I used my fingers as a guide to get the proper dome height.
The cookies waiting to go into the oven.
Now that the cookies have come out of the oven, it is time to start coating them in powdered sugar. Up till this point the kids have only helped me out by being my photographer (and they did a great job of that, if I do say so myself), but now they are ready to get busy.
LittleRoq is the first one to jump on the chair and start the sugar coating process (this was of course after he thoroughly washed his hands. I am quite a stickler about this important kitchen rule. CLEAN HANDS always!).
Now it was time for JoieGirl to get in on the action. She ended up putting the first coating of powdered sugar on almost all the cookies. Such great cooking assistants!
And finally we have all 30 cookies coated in powdered sugar twice and put away in a container waiting for Greek Night.