The cookies are deep-flavored and delicious. The grape must is boiled down to become thick petimezi (grape molasses) an pantry item in most traditional homes. Syrupy petimezi is diluted with an equal amount of water to make the cookies.

Grape must cookies, right, and Orange Koulourakia, left. 

The sweetness of the petimezi determines their taste, as moustokouloura have no additional sugar.  Commercial moustokouloura are usually large, but the homemade ones are smaller.

See also the Ginger and Grape Molasses cookies, my variation of the Ginger Snap ones.

To get 2 1/2 cups traditional petimezi (grape molasses) you need to simmer for about 1 hour or more 2 ½ kilos (5 pounds) grape juice. But to achieve the taste of my favorite island moustokouloura, made in August with the local fresh grape must, or with thinned down petimezi (grape molasses), I boil ordinary grape juice with sultanas and/or currents, and the result is great (see Note).

Makes about 3 dozen large cookies

4 cups all-purpose flour or more, as needed

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

 1 1/2 cups fresh sweet grape must (see note)

 2/3 cups olive oil

 1/3 cup brandy

  1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Mix 4 cups flour with the salt and the spices. Make a well in the centre and add the grape must and olive oil. In a small bowl stir the baking soda into the brandy and stir the bubbly mixture into the flour. 

Knead, briefly to form a soft dough. If it is too sticky, add more flour.

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Cut pieces of dough and roll to make 1/3-inch thick and 5- or 6-inch-long ropes, or shorter. Stick the two ends together or tie a knot or roll, snail-like the dough ropes, to form moustokouloura.

Place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes or more, until firm.

Let the cookies cool completely on a rack, and store in airtight boxes.

NOTE:

To make petimezi (grape molasses) juice fresh grapes to get 4 cups of juice, or use 4 cups commercial grape juice. Add 2 cups currants or sultanas and bring to a boil. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Process in the blender and pass the liquid through a sieve lined with cheesecloth. Tie the end of the cheesecloth and squeeze the pulp to extract all the juices.

Measure to get the amount needed and freeze the rest for future use.

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You can probably make this spanakopita-bread  with store-bought, whole-wheat pizza dough, if you are not up to making you own bread dough from scratch. 

For a 9-inch round bread, or 2 stuffed loaves 

3 cups chopped scallions –white plus most of the green part

1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for the pan or skillet

2/3 pound (350 grams) spinach leaves and most stems, or a combination of various greens (chard, beet greens, arugula, some bitter chicory etc.)

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1/3 cup chopped dill

1 tablespoon dry mint

2 tablespoons dry coriander

1 egg, lightly beaten (optional)

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 cups grated, aged graviera or pecorino, more to sprinkle the bread

1/2 cup aged smoked cheddar

Salt to taste

¼ of the bread or laganes dough or the dough for Ka’ak Savory Cookies that have doubled and are ready to be shaped

2-3 tablespoons breadcrumbs

Make the filling: In a heavy, deep skillet add the olive oil and sauté the scallions for 2-3 minutes in medium high, and as they start to sizzle reduce the heat to very low, cover the pan and cook the onions until soft, about 8-10 minutes, stirring every now and then. 

In the meantime cut the spinach or the various greens and their stems to about 1/2 inch pieces, transfer to a bowl and knead with your hands to wilt a bit.  Add them to the skillet with the onions and toss with 2 spatulas to half-cook and reduce. 

Remove from the heat and add the parsley, mint, coriander, the egg, if using, and pepper. Toss well and stir in the cheeses and mix. You can taste the stuffing and add a bit of salt if you think it needs it –I don’t, as the cheeses are quite salty.

Preheat the oven to 375 F (180 C) 

To make the round, pizza-like spanakopita: Add 2 tablespoons olive oil in a non-stick skillet and add the dough, flattening with your fingers to fill the skillet, lifting it around the sides. Add the stuffing, evening to cover all the surface, leaving a border all around. Sprinkle with cheese.  

Place the skillet over medium-high heat and fry the dough for about 8-10 min, until you see little bubbles all around and carefully lifting the dough with a spatula to see if it has started to brown at the bottom. 

Transfer to the skillet to the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or more, until the top is cooked and sizzling. Remove from the oven and from the skillet, with spatulas, and let cool on a rack before cutting to serve.  

VARIATION: beat 1 cup full-fat (preferably sheep’s milk yogurt) with 1 egg, and pour on top of the spinach filling, just before you transfer the skillet to the oven.

Form the stuffed loaves: Briefly knead and the dough and divide in two. On a lightly floured board flatten and roll one piece to make an oval, roughly 16-inch (about 40 cm) long. The dough is very forgiving and elastic so don’t be afraid to stretch  it and make it quite thin, as it will expand quite a bit in the oven.

Add half the stuffing in the center of the oval and with a spoon spread it to make a line, leaving about 2 inches from the two small sides, but at the top and bottom leave about 4-5 inches dough to cover well the stuffing. Turn the dough to cover the stuffing and pinch to seal. 

Spread a baking sheet with parchment paper and drizzle with 1-2 teaspoons olive oil. Transfer the stuffed log to the baking sheet and continue stuffing the second in the same way.

Brush the breads with olive oil and sprinkle well with water. With scissors mace cuts all along the seam on top of the breads, and sprinkle with some breadcrumbs.

Bake for about 45 min or more, until golden brown on top and bottom. Turn off the oven, open the door slightly and leave the breads in another 10 minutes.  

Let cool well before cutting to serve. Actually these breads taste better the next day, either served room temperature, or reheated in a low oven, loosely wrapped in parchment paper. 

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I revisited paximadia last week because my friend Defne Koryürek from Ayvalık, on the other side of the Aegean, organized an e-workshop as part of the two-day interdisciplinary conference on Food Futures. She used my basic recipe for her lively presentation, and she invited me to take part and speak about the history and uses of paximadia, or peksimet as they call them in Turkey. It was a lovely experience that made me re-think paximadia as an ideal sustainable staple. It is time to revive the way our ancestors used this crunchy, twice-baked bread not just to accompany cheese and meze spreads –as I had suggested in the article I did for Eating Well magazine —   but also instead of pasta in broths and soups, and of course in salads.  

When, in the fifties, Ansel Keys and his colleagues studied the eating habits, the state of health, and life expectancy of various peoples in seven countries, they decided that the inhabitants of Crete were faring best of all. Paximadia (barley rusks) in those days were the staple food of the Cretans. But when their traditional eating habits became the model for the now famed Mediterranean diet, the barley biscuits were translated into “whole wheat bread” for the unaccustomed and refined Northern Europeans and Americans. Barley flour has now completely disappeared from the shelves of the supermarkets in big cities, and one can only find it in health food stores or at wholesale distributors of animal fodder. But on Kea as on other islands we can get a pound or two from the local bakeries which still bake the traditional hard and dark paximadia.

_{Paximadia–barley rusks–in various shapes from the Greek islands and Crete.}

An old man from Mykonos told me that in the old days merchant ships preferred his island as a stopover because sailors loved to stock up on paximadia from the local bakeries made with a combination of barley and wheat flour. Similar biscuits are baked in most islands of the Aegean and the ones from Crete are still the most popular throughout Greece. One can get various kinds of Cretan paximadia in food stores and supermarkets. Although people belonging to the generation that traditionally fed on this kind of dried bread has either died or switched to more refined foods —like fluffy supermarket, crustless, sliced bread– there is a new generation of consumers who have tasted paximadia during their summer vacations in the islands and loved them. Once back in the city they started to look for them in their local bakeries, so now in most Athenian neighborhoods one can find darker or lighter paximadia, baked using mixtures containing more or less barley flour in addition to the wheat flour that makes lighter and crunchier biscuits, which need no soaking.

 

 

The basic research for this piece was done in 1996 for the paper I delivered at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cooking and I would like, once again, to express my deep gratitude to Aliki Asvesta, of the Gennadius Library in Athens, for her invaluable help. The paper was published in the book with the Symposium proceedings (Food on the Move, Prospect Books which seems to be out of print). Alan Davidson included the word ‘paximadia’ in his encyclopedia The Oxford Companion to Food with references to my paper. Thus the word has now become part of the English-speaking food-lovers’ vocabulary.

 

Paximadi (plural paximadia) was and still is the Greek word for the traditional dark barley biscuit (rusk or hard tack), although in recent years the word came to mean all kinds of twice-baked bread –what Italians call biscotti— both the savory and the sweet. Many believe that the word paximadi comes from Paxamus, a cook and author who had probably lived in Rome the first century AD. As food historian Andrew Dalby points out, from this Greek word came the Arabic bashmat or baqsimat, the Turkish and Serbo Croatian peksimet, the Romanian pesmet, and the Venetian pasimata.

European travelers’ amazement

“The staple food of the common people is a biscuit made of barley from which only the very outer husk has been discarded. They bake it two or three times a year. It is so black that when I showed a piece to one of our monks in Naxos, he sincerely told me that in France it would be bread to give to the dogs, but he doubted that even the dogs would eat it. Nevertheless, here the small children eat it from early morning on with great appetite, and they seem to be thriving. But it would cause hemorrhaging and death to those unaccustomed to it.” Writes Francois Richard who visited the island of Santorini in the 17th century “With this biscuit, which many soak in water before lunch, they eat their vegetables, their usual meal, because they only rarely taste meat, with the exception of the rich, who buy it once a year in order to secure that they will not go without it…”

Thevenot who visited Santorini a few years later, describes somewhat finer biscuits: “Their bread, which they call schises, is a kind of biscuit made with half wheat and half barley flour, black like tar, and so rough that one cannot swallow it; they only fire the oven twice a year… maybe they do it because they don’t have wood to burn and have to import it from Nio…”

Barley, cultivated in the Mediterranean from the beginnings of civilization, was for many centuries the basic food of the regional populations. It was roasted so that some of its husk could be rubbed off, then ground and mixed with water, spices, and maybe honey, to be made into gruel, or it was kneaded with water, shaped into cakes and then baked. The barley cakes were called maza, and according to the laws of Solon, maza was the everyday food of Athenians in classical times, while the more refined breads made of wheat or a combination of barley and wheat could only be baked on festive days. “When we come to our regular daily food we require that our barley cake (maza) be white, yet take pains that the broth which goes with it be black, and stain the fine color of the cake with the dye,” writes the comic writer Alexis. Maza was probably a kind of heavy unleavened flat bread, unlike paximadi, which is first baked as leavened bread. The way maza was eaten though, dipped in a more or less rich broth, as this paragraph reveals, was very similar to the way paximadi is consumed to this day.

Since barley contains less gluten than wheat, the bread made with it is heavy, darker in color and dries faster. So it is not surprising that it was baked again in order to be preserved. “But the flavor is good, with an unmistakably earthy tang — anyone who has ever eaten a good barley or Scotch broth will recognize the taste and the aroma,” writes Elizabeth David. She advises modern bakers to add a small amount of barley to their usual wheat flour when making bread, a widespread tradition in most Mediterranean countries.

C.S. Sonnini, who visited Eastern Mediterranean in the last years of the 18th century, writes that in Kimolos (then called Argentiere) and in the other islands of the Aegean, people only baked barley bread. He is one of the very few who agree with Davis on its taste: “…having lived there for a long time, I did not find this bread disagreeable, but thought it tasty and appetizing.” Sonnini also claims that all over the Orient barley bread was the usual food, and the Jews used it a lot in their diet.

Either baked in the form of a loaf, or shaped like a large doughnut, the bread destined to be made into paximadia is sliced –vertically in the case of the loaf and horizontally in the case of the doughnut– and left to dry for many hours in a low oven. Dipyros artos (twice-baked bread) was the ancient word and both the Italian biscotti as well as the French and English biscuit, derive their names from the description of the technique in Latin (biscotto).

During Byzantine times, paximadia “…was probably the food that the future Emperor Justin II, uncle of Justinian, carried in his knapsack, the food that kept him alive on his long walk from Illyria to Constantinople; it was certainly food for soldiers and for frugal priests as well,” writes Dalby. In the mid-18th century,Nicolas-Ernest Kleeman writes that after the fall of the Byzantine Empire the Turks served biscuits to the army during their sea and land expeditions.

European travelers of the 17th and 18th century also carried with them biscuits during their long journeys over sea and land, but their biscuits were probably made with white wheat flour, much more refined than the rough paximadia of the poor inhabitants of the Orient. During his wanderings on camelback through the vast Ottoman Empire–or the Levant as the eastern Mediterranean region was often called–Carlier de Pinon thought that the Arab camel drivers were extremely grateful when offered a taste of the European biscuits. He describes with contempt the Arab flat breads prepared fresh each time the caravan stopped and baked using camel’s dung as fuel. My impression is that Europeans misjudged the big gestures with which Arabs politely thanked them. I have no doubt that the locals definitely preferred their fresh breads to the dried European biscuits, especially as they often rolled their warm pitas over stuffings of fresh cheese and dates, as documented by Sauveboef.

From the islands to the city

Paximadia were not just eaten as an accompaniment to cheese, olives or dried fish and meats, but were used as the main ingredient of cooked dishes. Villamont describes a soup made with “black biscuits,” water and salt, which was prepared by a Genoan, during his voyage from Cyprus to Jerusalem. Similar soups, with the addition of vegetables, herbs, pulses or even a little meat or fish, can be found in the peasant cooking of Greece, Italy, Spain and other Mediterranean countries. On the island of Santorini people make a kind of sweetmeat, pounding together in a mortar the very black local paximadia with sultanas and shaping the thick dough into walnut size balls, which they often roll on toasted sesame seeds.

Briefly dipped in water drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse sea salt and oregano, paximadi becomes a delicious snack, which is called riganada in the Peloponnese. On the island of Kea, I recently tasted soaked paximadia with kopanisti–the local sharp fermented soft cheese–and chopped tomatoes, an excellent combination. Food writer Colman Andrews mentions a very similar dish served in Triora, the backcountry above Sanremo. There the medium brown biscuits are baked with buckwheat, not barley flour, and are usually soaked in a combination of water and vinegar.
In the Calabrian bakeries and grocery stores on Arthur avenue, in New York’s Bronx, one finds barley biscuits similar to the ones from Crete. Their taste complements fantastically the spicy caccio cavallo cheese of southern Italy, which is covered with crushed dried peperoncini (hot chillies). In a similar way one could not find a more perfect combination than good Cretan paximadia and the hard sharp anthotyro of Crete.

RECIPES: 
Barley and Wheat Cretan Paximadia 

Paximadi Salad with Tomatoes, Feta and Capers

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This much lighter festive bread is in fact an interesting variety of the traditional raisin bread (stafidopsomo).  It comes from Mykonos, the now cosmopolitan Cycladic island, and was given to me by Anna Sigala, my old neighborhood baker from the days I used to live under the Akropolis.

Anna had told me that she learned to make it from her grandmother. Now that Koukaki –the area around Acropolis– has become extremely popular with both locals and foreign visitors, Takis, Anna’s son, transformed the old bakeshop into a much-written about  bakery where tourists line up to get sandwiches, pies, and sweets.

My mother and father hated raisin bread because, for a period during the 1930s, the Greek government made it compulsory for everyone buying any kind of bread to buy some raisin bread, too.  The Ministry of Agriculture had bought all the raisins from Corinth to keep the growers satisfied, for political reasons, and then invented this method to get rid of the surplus.

Later, when this stupid regulation was no longer applied, raisin breads disappeared from the bakeries because no one would buy them.  Only recently, more than three generations later, raisin bread has again become popular.

Athenian bakeries often slice tsoureki and other flavored breads and bake them again, to make delicious, light biscotti; you can do the same with this one, if you have any leftover.

I love it with spicy cheese, like Rockford and Gorgonzola, or simply with coffee or tea; I also use as a base for English trifle or summer pudding, much like my older version of pumpkin and tangerine bread.

Makes 3 small loaves

1 cup yellow cornmeal

6 ½ cups bread flour or all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon instant dry yeast (see note 1)

1 teaspoon ground mahlep (see note 2)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

2 teaspoons finishing, somewhat coarse sea salt

1 teaspoon mastic tears (see note 2)

About 2 ½ cups orange juice, as needed

2 very small or one large tangerine, ends sliced off, then quartered to remove any pips

1 cup baked, mashed squash (preferably butternut squash)

¼ cup marmalade, preferably homemade

1-2 tablespoons honey (optional)

1 ½ cups raisins (about 200 grams)

½ cup sesame seeds and/or Nigella seeds

Olive oil for the bowl and the plastic wrap

1-2 tablespoons grape molasses to brush the loaves (optional)

Place flours, and the yeast in the bowl of a standing mixer and toss with a spatula. In a mortar beat the salt with the mastic tears to make a powder and add, together with the mahlep, cinnamon and cloves in the bowl with the flours and toss again to mix.

In the blender add 1 cups orange juice, the quartered tangerine(s) –peel and all—the baked squash, the marmalade, and the honey, if using, and pulse to chop and mix.

Make a well in the center of the flours and add the orange mixture from the blender, and one more cup orange juice. Fit the bowl to the mixer and work with the dough hook on low for 1 minute.

With the motor running add the rest of the orange juice and a little water, as needed, and work to make a dough somewhat wet and sticky that would start to come off the sides of the bowl. Add the raisins and keep working the dough on medium-low for about 5-6 minutes. If it feels too dry, add a little water, if too wet add a few tablespoons all-purpose flour. Occasionally stop and turn over the dough with a large spatula.

Lightly oil a large transparent or semi-transparent bowl, as well as a piece of plastic wrap. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and shape into a ball.  Transfer to the oiled bowl. Cover with the oiled plastic wrap and let rise until it almost doubles, about 2 hours or more.

(When the dough has expanded to about 1 1/2 times its size you may transfer the bowl with the dough to the refrigerator, and leave it overnight and up to 24 hours. It will continue to rise slowly. Before proceeding further, bring to room temperature).

Spread the sesame seeds and/or Nigella seeds on a platter and sprinkle liberally with water.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 3 with a dough scraper. Form 3 loaved with each piece of dough and roll them on the platter with the seeds, then transfer into cake pans lined with parchment paper. Cover loosely with oiled plastic and let rise for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until visibly expanded –they don’t need to double in size.

Preheat the oven to 375º F (200 C)

With scissors cut slits half-way into the bread and brush with the molasses if you like. Bake for 30 minutes then lower the temperature to 350 F (180 C) and continue baking for another 10-15 minutes, until golden and hollow sounding. An instant-read thermometer should read 200 F in the center of the bread.

Transfer to a rack and let cool completely before slicing.

NOTES

1. Both Costas and I love our breads somewhat dense; but if you like it lighter you can increase the Instant Dry Yeast adding 1 more teaspoon.
2. Instead of the traditional Greek mastic and mahlep, you could use cardamom –about 1 ½-2 teaspoons, I suggest.

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My late cousin Leonidas loved sweets, but he had health problems that meant he had to avoid butter and eggs. At some point, inspired by rolled baklava, he created these wonderfully simple, vegan crunchy, almond, and lemon phyllo rolls.

They are more like cookies than a real dessert dish, but they are dangerously addictive.

Leonidas used to bring them to our festive lunches and dinners, and he was proud to share the recipe with anyone who asked—and most people did. See at the bottom my savory variation, with cheese.

Makes about 85 pieces 

1/2 pound (225 g) almonds, with skins

1/4 to 1/3 cup (50 to 65 g) sugar, to taste

Zest of 3 untreated lemons, finely chopped

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 pound (455 g) phyllo, at room temperature (defrosted according to package directions)

Olive oil, for brushing the phyllo

Lemon liqueur or brandy, for sprinkling the rolls

Confectioner’s sugar, for serving

Preheat the oven to 375˚F (190°C).

Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and toast very lightly, tossing once, until just fragrant, about 8 minutes. Keep the oven on. Grind the almonds, neither too finely nor too coarsely—they should be the consistency of coarse bulgur. In a bowl, mix the almonds with the sugar, lemon zest, and cinnamon.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

With a good chef’s knife, before removing the plastic wrap from the phyllo packaging, cut the phyllo roll into 4 equal, smaller rolls.

Unroll one of the pieces. You will have a long stack of sheets. Cut the stack into 4 equal rectangles. Remove the top 2 rectangles of phyllo and keep the rest covered with plastic wrap so the phyllo doesn’t dry out. Oil the top phyllo layer lightly with the tip of your finger.

Spread a line of the almond mixture, about a heaping teaspoon’s worth, 1/2 inch (12 mm) from the bottom of the long side of the rectangle, leaving about 1/2 inch (12 mm) free on either side. Roll up the phyllo as if it were a cigar to enclose the filling, oiling the phyllo with your finger as you roll. Place the “cigar” on the baking sheet, seam side down.

Continue stuffing and rolling double rectangle sheets of phyllo the same way. You will fill both trays.

Bake the cigars in the preheated oven, rotating the trays after about 8 minutes. They should cook for about 15 minutes total, until light golden.

Let cool a few minutes, then sprinkle the cigars with a few drops of lemon liqueur or brandy and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Let cool completely and store in airtight boxes. In the unlikely event that you manage to resist the allure of the cigars, they will keep for at least 1 week.

VARIATION:

Savory Almond and Cheese “Cigars”

Enjoy this addictive finger food, which is an ideal accompaniment as an aperitif with drinks. Instead of sugar, add 1 1/2 cups (150 g) grated hard Myzithra or Parmesan cheese to the almond mixture. Omit the cinnamon and add 2 to 3 teaspoons Aleppo pepper or freshly ground black pepper, to taste, and proceed as above. If you like, for a savory crust, brush the finished rolls with milk and sprinkle with sesame seeds and fleur de sel before baking.

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It was the day we devote to bread and the different, sweet and savory variation one can create with just one basic dough; I had just happened to see Cali Doxiadis’ recipe and decided to try it with some of our leftover dough, after we made loaves, the cheese-stuffed buns, and the tomato or pepper-topped lagana (flat breads) we usually make.

Cali recently shared the FaceBook photos had posted ‘6-years ago’ during my very first try on the Harvest Tart.

In her recipe Cali writes: “…the original inspiration for this sweet and somewhat savoury tart is an Italian recipe for Schiacciata con Grappoli d’Uva, but several adaptations later, it is nearly unrecognisable. It has become a sort of crisp but chewy round flatbread, or sweet peppery pizza…”  In that first harvest tart my bread crust –I did not use Cali’s recipe– was OK, but not ideal, as the fruits were not well-incorporated on top, while the bottom was somewhat soggy. But it accompanied ideally the aged cheeses we served it with, especially the particularly spicy Sifnos Manoura, which ages in wine sediment.

When I made the tart again I chose to use instead of bread or pizza dough, the olive-oil-and-orange pastry that is so wonderful in my vegan olive pies. I had gotten the recipe many years from Zoe Evangelou, a lady I met at my friend Roxani Matsa’s winery, in Kantza; later I encountered very similar crust and olive pies in Cyprus. It is an easy and delicious crust that can easily accommodate both savory and/or sweet filling or topping.

Cali had recently shared the FaceBook photos I had posted ‘6-years ago’ during my very first try on the Harvest Tart, reminding me to try once again this simple Mediterranean treat which I had almost forgotten….

TO MAKE THE TART:

Follow the ingredients and instructions for crust of the Vegan Olive Pie, halving the recipe (2 instead of the 4 cups of flour) for a 25-30 cm. pie. Line the pan with parchment paper and stretch the dough to cover the pan, then sprinkle with sugar, preferably light brown, and follow Cali’s recipe for the grape and fig topping,  preferably choosing various kinds of grapes and more figs, if you happen to have plenty, as I do these days.

Sprinkle with some sugar on top of the fruit and bake in a 200 C oven for 30 minutes or more, until the crust is done and starts to color and the fruits wilted and bubbly.

As it is obvious the baked Harvest Tart is not as spectacular as the raw one, but it will be delicious! Trust me, and also my old friend Cali Doxiadis who lives in Corfu –on the northwestern part of Greece–  enjoying her spectacular garden, and of course cooking!

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Why not have more of the best parts of the pie? I decided to shape the dough differently in order to increase the caramelized area. The results are bite-size, cookie-like tahinopites — a kind of Eastern Mediterranean Cinnamon Rolls. It is important to get the highest quality tahini paste for these cookies. They taste best made a day in advance.  As they cool, they absorb and fully incorporate the lemony syrup.

Adapted from Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts

Makes about 56 cookies

The BREAD dough:

4-4 ½ cups All-purpose flour                                        

3 cups Bread Flour, or fine semolina (See NOTE)                    

1 package Active Dry Yeast (Instant)                         

1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon                                        

1/4 teaspoon Ground Cloves                                        

1/2 teaspoon Ground Pepper                                      

About  3  1/2 cups Water, or as needed                                        

1 teaspoon Sea Salt, or 1 1/2 teaspoons Kosher Salt                                                                                        

The TAHINI-Walnut  Filling

(400 grams) 14 ounces good quality Tahini Paste                    

2  cups Ground Walnuts                                      

2  cups Sugar –preferably light brown                                                     

2-3  tablespoons Cinnamon –the more the better                                                                                                     

The SYRUP

3 cups Sugar                                                       

3 cups Water                                                      

2/3 from Lemon Peel, fro a Non-treated lemon

1/2 cup Fresh Lemon Juice                                                                                                                                                                 

Make the dough: Oil a large bowl and a piece of plastic wrap. In a bowl of a food processor fitted with dough hooks combine the flours, yeast, salt and spices. Toss to mix.

With the motor running add water to make a soft dough.

With floured hands, shape the dough into a ball and transfer to the oiled bowl. Cover with the oiled plastic, place in the refrigerator and let rise overnight. Bring dough to room temperature before shaping.  

Make the Filling: In a bowl stir well the tahini to incorporate the oil and paste, add sugar, walnuts and cinnamon, and stir well to mix.

Line 2-3 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Shape the cookies: Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly with floured hands. Divide into 4; cover the 3 pieces and flatten the forth piece to make a rectangle about 12X9 inches (30X22 cm).  Spread generously with 1/4 of the filling to cover all the surface of the dough. With the help of a large dough scraper roll like a jelly roll, then stretch the roll carefully, lightly pressing with your hands, to make it about 14 inches (35 cm.) long.

With a large knife or the dough scraper cut 1-inch (2,5 cm.) slices; shape each slice to form an even round, transfer onto the lined baking sheet, and flatten somewhat, leaving  at least 2/3 inch (2 cm.) space between the cookies.

Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 30minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 F (190 C).

Bake for about 25 minutes, or until just light golden.

Make the syrup: Bring sugar and water to a boil, add lemon zest, turn down the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add lemon juice and simmer another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool completely.

Arrange Cookies snugly in one or more deep pans, saving the parchment paper. Douse with syrup while still warm. Cover with the parchment paper or plastic wrap, and set aside for 15 minutes. Uncover and flip the cookies to soak the bottom side with syrup; they will almost absorb it all. Let covered for 2 hours or overnight. Flip the tahinopita cookies again, and transfer to a serving platter, or arrange in a container, cover and refrigerate. Let them come to room temperature before serving.

NOTE: I like cookies that are somewhat chewy, as they hold the syrup better; if you prefer softer tahinopites you can omit the  bread flour or semolina and make the dough with just all-purpose flour. 

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Most people now use blanched almonds, but I find that, although less attractive, cookies made with whole, un-skinned nuts are equally delicious, not to mention a bit less labor-intensive — if you’re starting from the harvest-field.

All over the Middle East one finds endless variations of these cookies, often heavily scented with citrus blossom, or rose water. I prefer to just use my own lemon liqueur, leaving the flavor and aroma of the local almonds shine; but if you have ordinary almonds I suggest you use a good quality citrus blossom water.

See also the Lemon-scented Almond cookies that are not baked, but cooked on the stove.

For 60 cookies

2 pounds blanched almonds , or un-skinned, if you like

2 cups sugar

6-7 egg whites 1/4 teaspoon Salt

Almond extract (optional)

Citrus blossom water, as needed

3-4 tablespoons Lemon Liqueur, as needed, optional

About 60 whole blanched almonds

In the blender or mixer grind the almonds with the sugar to a polenta-like consistency.

Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon sugar and a pinch of salt to form soft peaks.

In a large bowl combine the almonds and sugar, adding a few drops of almond extract, or 1 tablespoon citrus blossom water. Gradually add enough egg whites to make a mixture that can be shaped into cookies. Be careful at this stage because you don’t want to make a wet paste –you may not need all the egg whites.

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Wetting your hands with liqueur or orange blossom water, take walnut-size pieces of the almond mixture and briefly roll on your palms to form into balls. Flatten slightly, pushing your finger at the top to make a dimple where you stick a whole almond. Place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until lightly golden both on top and at the bottom. Be very careful NOT to dry them. The almond cookies must be hard on the outside and still somewhat wet and soft inside. They may appear soft as you take them out of the oven but they harden as they cool.

Let cool completely, and store in air-tight boxes.

If you can resist eating them all, the almond cookies can be frozen for up to 4 months.

The post Kean Amygdalota (Flourless Almond Cookies) appeared first on Aglaia's Table οn Kea Cyclades.