Grandma Chrysoula’s Kourabiedes

This is a post I’ve been meaning to share forever. I’ve been blogging since 2012 and every year this season I’d think about it. Well, ladies and gents, I guess it was about time! Since I have a lot of photos on my hands and I want to give a number of details in both Greek and in English, I thought it would be neater to share everything in two different posts… otherwise, you might have had to scroll to infinity.

So let’s get down to the details! Kourabiedes, pronounced [kou-rub-ye-thes], are light sugar/butter cookies, fluffy but crispy on the outside and melt-in-your-mouth crumbly to the bite. It is a traditional Christmas cookie but in some parts of Greece, they’re also offered as a treat at weddings and christenings (since they’re sprinkled with powdered sugar, their white color is associated with innocence & purity).

This recipe was passed down to my mother from her mother (my grandmother Chrysoula). It is hand-written with a blue-ink fountain pen (unknown by who—my grandmother couldn’t read or write so she must have dictated this to someone and then had it sent to my mom) and if you look really close, despite several spelling mistakes, you can distinguish the diacritics (accents) of the Greek polytonic orthography system above certain vowels. I had to laminate the piece of paper because it was falling apart but I so wanted to keep it!

Before we get down to the actual recipe and all the how-to’s I would like to draw your attention to a very particular ingredient, the wood-ash ‘lye’ water. Lye water seems to be an extremely confusing term and googling it, will most likely add to your confusion! I had to read through a lot of articles before I could make any sense of it myself and here’s what I’ve come down to: Food-grade lye (as it is marketed in Europe and in the US) is sodium hydroxide (NaOH), commonly called caustic soda, and it is a very strong alkali. Soap-makers use it but it is also used in baking (a key ingredient in pretzel recipes!) and has several other uses in the food industry (e.g. in chocolate & cocoa processing). It is often confused with potassium hydroxide (KOH), commonly called caustic potash, which is also used in soap-making and has several other industrial uses. The wood-ash ‘lye’, is a tad stronger (has a higher pH) than baking soda but it is nowhere near NaOH in strength. It is a mixture of sodium carbonate & potassium carbonate, NOT hydroxide! The Chinese ‘lye water’ used in Asian cuisine is also wood-ash (or other plant-ash) water. You can use that in your recipe, but I will also tell you how to make your own—if you have a fireplace it’s not that big of a deal.

On an easier note, another special ingredient is Ouzo: an anise-flavored aperitif that is widely consumed in Greece & Cyprus. You could replace it with a number of other anise-flavored liqueurs such as the French Anisette or Pastis, the Italian Sambuca, the Spanish Ojen, or with Arak, the traditional aperitif of Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, and Iran!

Okay! Let’s get down to business—first, you need to blanch and toast your almonds. You can make them the day before as they need to be completely cool when used in the recipe.

How to blanch & toast almonds – Time=blanching 1-2mins/toasting 10-15mins

Ingredients:
Raw unsalted almonds (the kourabiedes recipe calls for 200 gr)

Directions:
Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Place your raw almonds into the boiling water. Let them boil for merely 1 to 2 minutes. Don’t leave them longer than that because they will start to soften. Drain the almonds immediately in a colander or strainer and rinse them with cold water to cool them down. Blot them dry with a paper towel. You’ll notice that the skins will be slightly shriveled. Use your fingers to gently squeeze the almonds and loosen their skin off.

True story: if you squeeze too hard they’ll shoot across the room—which will be extremely entertaining… to others… not you… Try squeezing them from one hand to the other to prevent launching!

Once you remove the skins, cut them lengthwise in fourths and lay them on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake them in a preheated oven at 350 ºF/180 ºC for 10-15 minutes, until they’re golden brown (careful, they burn easily!).

This is what your almonds should look like when cut in fourths:

Moving on to the next step—making your own wood-ash ‘lye’ water! First and foremost, you will have to make sure the ash you use is nothing but clean, pure-wood ash. This practically means that if you have a fireplace or are borrowing ash from a neighbor or friend who does, you can’t use it if you/they burn:

• firelogs containing petroleum or bio wax
• sawdust or recycled coffee grounds firelogs
• newspaper logs
• any other type of fake firelogs
• wood or corn pellets
• random disposable items e.g. napkins, tissues, cigarette butts!

How to make wood ash ‘lye’ water – servings=yields ½ a glass (110 ml) appropriate for a 2-pound-flour batter

Ingredients:
2 glasses of water
3 rounded tbsp of ash

Directions:
In a small pot bring a glass of water to a boil. Add 3 rounded tbsp of ash and one more glass of water. Resume boil, remove from fire and set it aside until all the ash settles completely (this usually takes an hour). Drain—using a ladle, so as not to shift the pot—through a very fine mesh strainer and take half a glass of water.

One more step before getting down to the actual recipe!

How to clarify butter – servings=yields 5 cups (approx. 1.100 ml)

2 pounds of butter

Directions:
Place the butter in a heavy saucepan and melt slowly over low heat. Skim the foam from the top. Remove the pan from the heat and let the butter stand for 30-40 minutes. Slowly pour into a clean container through a very fine mesh sieve, discarding the milky solids in the bottom of the pan.

So without further ado, here’s the basic recipe:

Kourabiedes – servings=60-70 pieces, difficulty=a bit time consuming

Ingredients:
5 cups (approx. 1.100 ml) of melted, clarified butter (1.5 to 2 pounds of butter will give you 5 clarified cups)
3-5 pinches of pure vanilla powder (careful, not paste nor extract!)
40 ml ouzo
5 tbsp (level) of powdered sugar
110 ml wood-ash ‘lye’ water

200 gr of blanched, toasted almonds, cut lengthwise in fourths
about 2 pounds of flour
*2 pounds of powdered sugar (aka confectioner’s/icing sugar)
[this is how much you’ll approximately need to properly coat 70 pieces, it is not added in the actual dough!]

Directions:
Put the clarified butter in the mixer bowl and beat it at low speed for about 5 minutes, add the vanilla, continue beating, add the ouzo, the 5 level tablespoons of sugar, continue beating for another 10 minutes, and then add the lye water. Continue beating until the mixture turns into a smooth, white cream (takes about an hour!).

Tip: add a lemon peel while beating the cream but make sure you cut a rather big chunk that won’t get caught in the mixer whip!

Pour the mixture into a bowl, add the almonds (they must be completely cooled down), remove the lemon peel and slowly add the flour until you have a dough that’s neither too firm nor too soft or too sticky in touch. Grease a baking sheet with butter. You can use a spoon or small ice-cream scoop to take even amounts of dough and shape them into small patties. Use your thumb to make a slight curve on top. Bake in a preheated oven, on the middle rack, at 350-392 ºF/180-200 ºC until they are golden brown and little cracks form on the surface (about 20 minutes to half an hour per batch).
Lay paper towels on a counter. Then lay a grease-proof paper on top of that. Sprinkle a thick layer of powdered sugar through a shift. Distribute the kourabiedes on the sugar as soon as they come hot out of the oven. Sprinkle another thick layer of powdered sugar through the shift on top of the kourabiedes. Make sure they are well-covered! Continue with the rest of your batches and let them cool down completely. It’s best if you leave them overnight—spread out, sitting on sugar, and completely covered in it as well! Only after they had been sitting like that for hours and are completely cooled down can you get rid of some of the excess powdered sugar and arrange the kourabiedes in cookie boxes, food containers, or plates.

See how clear clarified butter looks? It makes a lot of difference both to the taste and to the texture of the end product.

And this is what it should look like after it’s been beaten for an hour:

This is what your “patties” should look like:

And here they are out of the oven:

See those cracks I was talking about? They are pretty essential for taking in the necessary amount of powdered sugar later on and they’re also a good indication that the kourabiedes are baked to perfection!

I realize that with all the prep required this might seem a bit intimidating but I do hope you’ll give kourabiedes a try, they’re sooo worth it. Enjoy!

Pssst! You can find the recipe in Greek here – Η συνταγή στα Ελληνικά εδώ.

*images by Athina D. Pantazatou for Kicking Back the Pebbles