Kourabiedes Recipe (Greek Christmas Almond Butter Cookies)

Kourabiedes are the other Greek Christmas cookie, and the household argument is which of the two is better. Melomakarona are oil-based, spiced and drenched in honey syrup. Kourabiedes are the opposite: almost pure butter, almond, and so much icing sugar that you cannot eat one without wearing some of it.

The butter is the whole thing. There is very little else in them, so the quality of the butter is the quality of the cookie, and Greek recipes traditionally clarify it first to remove the water and milk solids.

They should be baked pale. A browned kourabies has been overcooked and will be dry and crumbly in the wrong way. Pale, sandy, and collapsing when you bite it.

Key preparation steps

1. Clarify the butter and let it cool to soft rather than melted.
2. Beat butter and sugar for a full ten minutes until white and aerated.
3. Fold in the flour minimally, then the toasted almonds.
4. Bake pale, dust warm, then dust again once cool.

Why clarify the butter?

Butter is around sixteen percent water, and in a cookie with this little else in it, that water develops gluten and makes the texture tougher and less sandy. Removing it gives the characteristic melting crumb.

Melt the butter gently, let it settle, skim the foam and pour off the clear golden fat, leaving the milky solids behind. Then let it cool and firm up to a soft, spreadable state before you beat it. Do not use it liquid.

Plenty of Greek households skip this and use soft butter straight from the packet, and the cookies are still very good. But if you want the texture that makes people close their eyes, clarify it.

Beat the butter longer than you think

Ten minutes with an electric mixer, until the mixture is genuinely white and has visibly grown in volume. This is the only leavening these cookies get.

Under-beaten butter gives a dense, greasy cookie. The aeration is what makes them light enough to collapse in the mouth.

Add the icing sugar to the butter during this stage rather than caster sugar, which keeps the texture fine rather than grainy.

Do not overwork the dough

Once the flour goes in, fold gently and stop the moment it comes together. Same rule as melomakarona and for the same reason: gluten development makes them tough.

The dough should be soft and slightly greasy, not elastic. If it feels springy, you have gone too far.

Toast the almonds first and chop them roughly rather than grinding them. Five minutes in a dry pan makes a substantial difference to the flavour.

The double dusting, and the brandy

Dust them heavily with icing sugar while they are still warm, which makes the first layer melt slightly and stick. Then let them cool completely and dust again, thickly, so they are properly buried.

The traditional step in between is a light brush or spray of rosewater or brandy on the warm cookies, which helps the sugar adhere and adds a faint perfume. Metaxa or ouzo both work.

Store them in a tin with more icing sugar sifted between the layers. They keep for three weeks and are better after two days.

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