Melomakarona: Orange and Spice Cookies Soaked in Honey Syrup
By Joe
Source: Serious Eats — Sharon Brenner, Melomakarona (Greek Christmas Cookies).
A melomakarona (greek christmas cookies) recipe for 18 servings, written from a single tested source, with times and temperatures kept as the source set them.
Always check the labels of the products you use.
Method
- 1
Bake. For the Syrup: I n a mid-sized saucepan, mix sugar, quartered orange, plus 1 cup (250 ml) water. Tip in cloves plus cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice. Bring mixture in order to a boil over a medium-high flame. Reduce heat to medium-low plus simmer for 5 minutes. Take out from heat. Lightly push orange pieces in pan to release juices in syrup using back of a spatula. Beat in honey and keep to one side to cool. For this Cookies: Adjust oven rack to middle position plus heat oven to 190°C. Beat together plain flour, fine semolina flour, pumpkin pie spice, bicarbonate of soda, and salt in a big bowl. Beat together olive or sunflower oil, orange zest, orange juice, plus sugar in a separate mid-sized bowl. Tip in wet mixture in dry mixture, plus use a flexible spatula to lightly fold till it has only just come together and no floury bits remain. Set two baking paper–lined rimmed baking sheets on work surface. Shape the dough in ping-pong-sized balls, plus set out all of them in 5 rows of 3 on every sheet (15 cookies per sheet) using hands. Shape balls into oblong shapes (rough ovals) around 1.5 to 5 cm long, offset from each other. Use the back of a fork to push indentations of fork tongs in upper plus lower middle portions of every cookie, in same direction after all cookies are oblong. Repeat on all cookies. Cook cookies, one sheet tray after another, till a deep gold and set, 22 to 25 minutes. Prepare a syrup-dunking station: Set a clean baking paper–lined rimmed baking tray, saucepan using cooled syrup, plus a slotted spoon or slotted spatula side by side while cookies bake. Put rimmed baking tray with cookies next to syrup saucepan when cookies are baked. Take care: the tray edges will be very hot. Dunk still-hot cookies into cooled syrup a batch after another of 4 or 5 after another, lightly flipping or submerging every to ensure they are fully dunked using the slotted spoon or spatula. Let cookies rest in syrup for a period of 10 to 15 seconds. Move to the baking paper–lined baking tray. Repeat till all cookies are dunked in syrup. Top every cookie using walnuts plus sesame seeds (if using). Leave till it is cold for an extra 15 minutes. Serve or leave till completely cold, next store in an airtight container at room temperature for a period of 5 days.
Storage
Keep covered and eat within a few days; freeze leftovers if the dish allows it.
Free sugars
29.4 g per serving
58.8 % of the 50 g daily maximum · 117.6 % of the ideal 25 g
Free sugars under 50 g a day, ideally about 25 g, based on WHO free-sugar guidance (not endorsed by WHO). The share shown is the share of one serving. WHO
Equipment
- mixing bowl
- scales
- baking tin or tray
- saucepan
Nutrition per serving Calculated from USDA FoodData Central
| Per serving | Amount |
|---|---|
| Energy | 392 kcal |
| Protein | 4.4 g |
| Carbohydrate | 57.2 g |
| of which sugars | 29.7 g |
| of which free sugars | 29.4 g |
| Fat | 16.8 g |
| of which saturates | 2.2 g |
| Fibre | 1.4 g |
| Salt | 0.26 g |
Protein per 100 kcal
1.1 g High protein needs ≥ 5 g per 100 kcal (20% of energy) and ≥ 10 g per serving
Calculated from USDA FoodData Central ingredient values
