Let's celebrate Christmas with Greek crunchy snowball biscuits!
Kourabiedes are traditional Greek Christmas shortbread-like biscuits with crunchy almonds inside covered in icing sugar creating a perfect wintery 'snowball' effect. Be careful not to sneeze when eating them as you will create a snowstorm!
Kourabiedes are extremely popular in Greece during the festive season and can be found alongside other Christmas delights such as Melomakarona - click here for my recipe.
Every Christmas, my mother and I bake delicious Greek Christmas treats together and Kourabiedes is a family favourite. Christmas would not be the same without a platter full of these crunchy snowball biscuits. They are very different to other Greek sweets as they are dry and not syrupy like most traditional biscuits and cakes, but fear not - they are just as scrumptious!
So as Christmas is nearly upon us, I dusted off our family's Greek cookbook and used it as a basis for my Kourabiedes recipe which is really easy to make and is a perfect sweet treat to share with family and friends. We have been using this cookbook for three generations in our family and although the pages are falling apart, it is honestly the best Greek cookbook I have come across.
Here is my recipe for Kourabiedes (makes 25 biscuits):
Ingredients
50g Caster sugar
250g Unsalted butter
200g Roasted whole almonds or almond flakes (I explain how to roast them below if needed)
2 Egg yolks
1/4 Cup of brandy/ cognac (Be generous - it's Christmas!)
1/4 Teaspoon nutmeg
240g Plain flour
200g Icing sugar
Instructions
1. I only had almond flakes, so I roasted these in the oven for 6 minutes (make sure they don't burn as they will taste bitter) and then I crushed them with my hands into small pieces. I would recommend you use ready roasted whole almonds and crush them with a rolling pin in order to get that delicious crunchy bite, however almond flakes work just as well if you don't have whole almonds in the house (or are lazy like me)!
2. Preheat oven to 160 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter, egg yolks and sugar.
3. Add the cognac/ brandy, nutmeg and almonds to the mixing bowl.
4. Add the flour slowly, mixing all the ingredients together. The dough shouldn't be very sticky, so add some more flour if it is sticking to your fingers or add water if it is too stiff.
5. Add a sprinkle of flour to a surface area and knead the dough for a couple of minutes.
6. Place baking paper over a baking tray. Tear off walnut size pieces of dough and roll into balls or moon shape crescents and place on the baking tray (just like my photo below).
7. Bake the biscuits for 30 minutes. Ensure they don't burn, they should be a light golden colour when they come out of the oven. Allow them to cool for 5 minutes before moving them anywhere.
8. Pour the icing sugar in a bowl, take each biscuit and roll gently in the sugar and then sprinkle a generous amount of sugar on top.
9. Stack all your Kourabiedes on a plate and enjoy them with family and friends. Kala Xristougenna/ Merry Christmas!
Kali orexi - enjoy!!
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