Greek Christmas cookies (Melomakarona)

Your whole house will smell delicious when you bake these well-loved cookies

Makes about 25-30 cookies

 

1 kg flour

1 t baking soda

2 t baking powder

200 g sugar

450 ml olive or corn oil

120 ml cognac or Metaxa

120 ml orange juice + zest of 1 orange

dash cinnamon

 

for the syrup:

500 g honey

400 g sugar

450 ml water

 

garnish:

chopped walnuts, cinnamon

 

Heat oven to 180 °C

Mix the sugar and the cognac and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Sift the flour with the baking powder & soda into a large bowl. Mix cognac, sugar, orange juice and orange zest and add to the flour. Knead to make a dough. Shape the dough into rounded log shapes and place them on parchment paper on cookie sheets, leaving plenty of space around each one. Flatten the cookies slightly with a fork. Bake the cookies about 25 minutes, until done.

Meanwhile, place all the ingredients for the syrup in a pan and bring to a boil. Simmer 5 minutes until slightly thickened.

Remove the cookies from the baking sheets, place in a bowl and pour the warm syrup over them. After 15 minutes, remove the cookies from the syrup and sprinkle them with chopped nuts and cinnamon.