2 cup butter, unsalted
1 cup sugar, powdered
3 egg yolks
3 tbsp brandy
2 tsp vanilla extract
6 cup flour
1/2 cup almonds (blanched), chopped
1 lb sugar, powdered (one package)
Directions
Beat the butter with the sugar until it becomes
fluffy. Add the egg yolks one by one, beating
continuously. Add the brandy and vanilla.
Blend in the almonds and the flour, a cup at a time.
Use enough flour to get a firm dough (it may take a
bit more or less than the amount mentioned in the
ingredients list). Use your hands to do the mixing, as
an electric mixer will be useless after the first two
or three cups of flour have been added. Place the
dough in the refrigerator for at least one hour.
Shape the dough into balls, about one inch in
diameter, flatten them and place on greased cookie
sheets. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven. Roll each cookie (while it is
still hot) in the powdered sugar and put it back on
the cookie sheet. Repeat this step once more, so that
you get a thicker coating.
Place the coated cookies on a platter, liberally
sprinkling each layer and the bottom of the platter
with powdered sugar. When you are done, there
shouldn't be any sugar left. Let them cool and they
are ready to eat!
NOTES:
* Traditional Greek Christmas cookies coated with
powdered sugar -- This is one of the two kinds of
confection that are traditionally consumed in large
quantities in Greece during the holiday season (the
other is melomacarona). As a quick lesson in greek,
"kourabiedes" (pronounced "kou-ra-bi-ETH-es", is the
plural of the word "kourabies" (kou-ra-bi-ES). Now all
you need to enjoy them is the recipe. I got this one
from a Greek cookbook and translated it into English.
* The cookbook suggests the following variations:
using ouzo or scotch instead of brandy, and almond
extract instead of vanilla extract, but I have not
tried any of them. Also, putting granulated instead of
powdered sugar in the dough didn't seem to affect the
recipe, there's so much sugar in it, that you couldn't
tell the difference anyway.
* The cookbook also suggested using twice the amount
of sugar for coating. This is obviously too much, but
it should make you realize that you must really be
liberal with the sugar!
: Difficulty: Easy to moderate.
: Time: 30 minutes preparation, one hour
refrigeration, 20 minutes baking. : Precision:
approximate measurement OK.
: Kriton Kyrimis
: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
: princeton!kyrimis kyrimis@princeton.edu
: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust
Servings: 30 pieces
Kourabiedes Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Alcohol; Appetizer; Beverage; Nut
The History of Recipes
It is possible to track the history of written recipes back into antiquity, in fact as far back into history as ancient Egypt, and possibly even further. Interesting though that is, generally, these early cook books were just basic pictorial, hieroglyphic or cunieform recipes for preparing meals.
In fact, the most ancient recipe discovered so far, according to food historians is a collection of tablets in Sumerian which recount the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making drinkers feel exhilarated and blissful. Later on, in The time of the romans around 25BC a man called Apicius compiled a collection of scripts showing how to cook the recipes enjoyed by wealthy roman citizens. In his publication, he tells us how the roman meals were separated into hors d`oeuvres, entrees and dessert, a style of dining still practiced today. Aspicius also describes how the ancient Romans were skilled in the use of a good variety of spices and herbs, including a few that will be familiar to modern cooks for example thyme, fennel and parsley. For the decades that followed, the wealthy families of the West strove to serve the most exotic meals, and because of this chefs and their recipes could command a high salary. However, it wasn`t until the 1800s that haute cuisine and recipe collections reached a high level of popularity. Mrs Isabella Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the USA, spent years to collecting, testing, and publishing recipes of the day. By the time we get to the 1900s, cooking books were greatly in demand mostly as a result of higher levels of literacy, more spare time and having more money to spend. The arrival of television brought us TV chefs and the recipe books that accompanied them. Which pretty much brings us to the present day and the invention of computers and the internet, permitting everyone to access massive numbers of recipes such as those found on this site. |
We hope you enjoy this Kourabiedes recipe.
