← Nouns Cooking · Greek

Ingredients

• 300 g Sugar
• 250 ml Water
• 250 g Honey
• 1 Cinnamon stick
• 250 ml olive oil (half extra virgin, half light)
• 100 g Sugar
• 125 ml fresh orange juice
• 2 Orange, zested
• 3 tbsp brandy or cognac
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• 600 g plain flour
• 100 g fine semolina
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• ½ tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 100 g Walnuts, finely chopped
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Method

1. Make the syrup first: boil the sugar, water and cinnamon stick for 5 min, take off the heat and stir in the honey. Leave to cool to room temperature.
2. Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan, 350°F) and line two trays. Whisk the oil, sugar, orange juice, zest, brandy, cinnamon and cloves in a large bowl.
3. Mix the flour, semolina, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda, then add to the wet mix and fold together gently with your hands, just until it forms a soft, oily dough. Overworking makes the cookies hard.
4. Shape into ovals about the size of a walnut (30 g), set on the trays and press the tops lightly with a fork.
5. Bake for 20–25 min, until deep golden all over.
6. While still hot, drop the cookies a few at a time into the cool syrup for 1 minute, turning them, then lift onto a rack set over a tray.
7. Sprinkle generously with walnuts and a little cinnamon and leave to cool and firm up for at least 1 hour.

Tips

• Contains nuts (walnuts). For an alcohol-free version, replace the brandy with more orange juice.
• They keep for 2–3 weeks in an airtight tin and get even more syrupy.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

My Greek Dish Dimitra's Dishes OliveTomato