Melomakarona and Kourabiedes: How these two Christmas sweets came to be

Kourabiedes and melomakarona. Photo: Eurokinissi

21 December 2020 6:00am

Melomakarona and kourabiedes are a traditional Christmas stapl

The word melomakarona is a compound word meaning honey (meli) and blessed honouring of the dead (makaria).

They are a traditional egg-shaped dessert prepared during the Christmas holiday season, however the roots of melomakarona are steeped in Greece’s pagan history.

In antiquity, a piece of bread in the shape of modern melomakarona were offered after the funeral much like kolyva are offered by modern Greek Christians today.

There are testimonies that suggest that melomakarona (then known as makaria) were shared after the Epitaph speech by Pericles at Keramikos in 430 BC to commemorate the first dead of the Peloponnesian war.

In Keramikos – an area of Athens, Greece, located to the northwest of the Acropolis – the women would gather to mourn the dead of war and they would prepare makaria to share in the memory of their loved ones.

Kourabiedes appeared later. The myth tells us that during the Ottoman rule all kourabiedes had to be made into the crescent shape and therefore 250 years later that shape still predominates.

In Turkish etymology the word is from the root “kuru” (dry), and “biye” (biscuit). It is a rounded butter cookie with pieces of almond inside, the entire outside covered in powdered sugar.

The small bite-sized kourabiedes pieces are also good but the catch is that you don’t know how many you’ve had.

MELOMAKARONA

Ingredients
1 cup olive oil or canola oil

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup ouzo

1/2 cup fresh orange juice

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tablespoons orange zest

1 cup of fine semolina

2 and 1/2 cups of plain flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon clove powder

Method
1. Sift baking powder with flour

2. Beat sugar and oil, add all ingredients and mixing to make a dough

3. Shape by taking a small fist full of dough and making a short oval shape

4. Bake on baking paper for about 30 minutes

5. Do not make them too big, as they will not cook on the inside

6. Remove put them on a cooling rack

7. Make syrup

Syrup

2 cups of water

2 cups sugar

1 cups honey

1 stick cinnamon

5 whole cloves

1 star anise

1- 2 teaspoons rosewater

1. Put all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil for about 5 minutes on a slow heat

2. Take off heat and take out spices

3. With a slotted spoon dip each melomakarono in the syrup while still hot for a few seconds and line up on a platter in layers sprinkling each layer with coarsely chopped walnuts

* Do not refrigerate. When cooled, store in an airtight container. They will keep for a few weeks.

KOURABIEDES

Ingredients:
1/2 kilo plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg yolk

250 grams sugar

2 tablespoons ouzo

1/4 cup of strained fresh orange juice

500 grams unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

250 grams coarsely ground, blanched and toasted almonds

4 dozen cloves

Method:
1. In a mixer beat egg yolk with sugar, ouzo and orange juice for 2 minutes