`Greeks Celebrate Christmas with Traditional Olive Oil-Based Cookies - Olive Oil Times
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Greeks Celebrate Christmas with Traditional Olive Oil-Based Cookies

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Dec. 30, 2024 16:25 UTC

Like most hol­i­days in Greece, Christmas revolves around reli­gion and food.

Melomakarona and koura­biedes are Greece’s most beloved Christmas sweets, found in every home, bak­ery and pas­try shop across the coun­try dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son.

Made with sim­ple ingre­di­ents, these deca­dent lit­tle cook­ies boast dif­fer­ent but fes­tive fla­vor pro­files. Kourabiedes are also more crunchy, while melo­makarona feel softer to the mouth.

I actu­ally feel good about (eat­ing melo­makarona) because they really rep­re­sent what the Greek Mediterranean diet is all about: deli­cious food made with good-for-you ingre­di­ents.- Elena Paravantes, nutri­tion­ist and dieti­cian

Both melo­makarona and koura­biedes clas­sify as gateaux de voy­age or travel cakes, mean­ing they are not refrig­er­ated and can also with­stand the jolts of trav­el­ing.

Melomakarona (pro­nounced meh-loh-mah-KAH-roh-nah, sin­gu­lar melo­makarono) is prob­a­bly the most clas­sic Greek Christmas del­i­cacy and a pop­u­lar treat in the coun­try dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son.

Melomakarona are cook­ies made from flour, olive oil, sugar and orange juice, drenched in honey syrup with crushed wal­nuts for the top­ping. Cinnamon and orange zest can also add extra fla­vor to the mix­ture.

See Also:Panettone Gets a Healthy Upgrade

Variations, such as melo­makarona cov­ered in choco­late or stuffed with wal­nuts and even plums, also exist.

Some recipes also sug­gest replac­ing about a third of the flour with semolina, which helps to soak up the syrup and makes the melo­makarona suc­cu­lent on the inside.

When mak­ing melo­makarona, high-qual­ity olive oil is an indis­pens­able ingre­di­ent.

“Only the season’s fresh extra vir­gin olive oil goes into our melo­makarona,” Konstantinos Daremas, a fourth-gen­er­a­tion baker and the owner of a pas­try shop in Markopoulo near Athens, told Olive Oil Times. ​“This way, we get great fla­vor accom­pa­nied by the count­less healthy attrib­utes of the olive oil.”

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A pile of melomakarona (Photo: Konstantinos Daremas)

“The olive oil comes from our pri­vately owned, organic groves,” he said. ​“And if needed, we buy more extra vir­gin olive oil from cer­ti­fied organic pro­duc­ers. The price of extra vir­gin olive oil has sky­rock­eted in the last cou­ple of years, but we make no com­pro­mises.”

Daremas also dis­ap­proved of sub­sti­tut­ing a small amount of veg­etable oil for olive oil in the prepa­ra­tion of melo­makarona.

“Some cooks and bak­ers sup­pos­edly use veg­etable oil to make the melo­makarona lighter, but they just use it to cut costs,” he said. ​“The veg­etable oil adds noth­ing to the melo­makarona in terms of fla­vor or con­sis­tency.”

Food blog­ger Eva Monochari advises exclu­sively using extra vir­gin olive oil to make melo­makarona, espe­cially from the Manaki or the Koutsourelia olive vari­eties that give mild, fruity oils per­fect for mak­ing cakes and sweets.

Another secret to mak­ing deli­cious melo­makarona is not to over­work the dough but to knead it until all the ingre­di­ents are mixed.

In their basic recipe, melo­makarona are vegan and suit­able for those who fast since they con­tain no egg or but­ter, espe­cially if the honey used to pre­pare the syrup is replaced with maple or agave syrup.

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Made with every­day ingre­di­ents, melo­makarona are also health­ier than most Christmas sweets and desserts.

“I love eat­ing melo­makarona,” nutri­tion­ist and reg­is­tered dieti­cian Elena Paravantes said. ​“I actu­ally feel good about it because they really rep­re­sent what the Greek Mediterranean diet is all about: deli­cious food made with good-for-you ingre­di­ents.”

“On the one hand, yes, these sweets have plenty of sugar, but on the other hand the olive oil, the honey, the orange zest and the wal­nuts are all sources of antiox­i­dants,” she added. ​“Most impor­tantly, the fat from the melo­makarona comes exclu­sively from olive oil.”

Chef Petros Syrigos sug­gests using the melo­makarona all year round as reg­u­lar cook­ies with­out the honey syrup, as they can per­fectly com­ple­ment a cup of cof­fee.

Kourabiedes (pro­nounced koo-rah-BYED-es, sin­gu­lar koura­bie) is another Greek Christmas del­i­cacy, com­pet­ing with melo­makarona for the title of the country’s most pop­u­lar Christmas sweet.

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Kourabiedes covered in powdered sugar (Photo: Stratos Petrou via Facebook)

Covered in a veil of pow­dered sugar, these snowy round or cres­cent-shaped cook­ies are the per­fect delight for the hol­i­day sea­son.

Unlike melo­makarona, which are exclu­sively asso­ci­ated with the hol­i­day sea­son, koura­biedes are made in Greek homes and pas­try shops all year round. They are also a pop­u­lar treat at wed­dings and other cel­e­bra­tions.

The most com­mon recipes for koura­biedes include but­ter as the pri­mary fatty ingre­di­ent. In some regions of Greece, how­ever, such as the Peloponnese and Crete where olive oil is abun­dant, tra­di­tional koura­biedes recipes favor extra vir­gin olive oil for mak­ing the deca­dent sweets.

Food blog­ger Maria Patsia was a fan of koura­biedes made with but­ter. However, she was thrilled when she came across a recipe for koura­biedes with extra vir­gin olive oil, ouzo and wal­nuts.

“[The recipe] chal­lenged me as it said it would con­vince even the most fanatic of but­ter koura­biedes… curios­ity made me try it,” she said. ​“And I am cer­tain that you have never eaten any­thing like that before.”

When mak­ing olive oil koura­biedes, no con­ver­sion of quan­ti­ties is needed to replace but­ter with olive oil since the koura­biedes recipes with olive oil are self-sus­tain­ing.

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A melomakarono and a kourabie served together is a common Christmas treat in Greek homes. (Photo: OOT Archive)

Apart from the olive oil, flour, sugar, egg yolks, almonds, and icing sugar used for sprin­kling after bak­ing are used to make the koura­biedes.

Some recipes leave out the egg yolks, mak­ing olive oil koura­biedes a tasty vegan option.

The almonds are roughly chopped and added to the mix­ture. Alternatively, a whole almond is added to the cen­ter of each koura­bie before bak­ing.

See Also:Use Extra Virgin Olive Oil for Healthy and Delicious Baking

A cru­cial step when mak­ing koura­biedes is to whisk the olive oil and sugar well until the mix­ture becomes pale and fluffy. The rest of the ingre­di­ents are then grad­u­ally added to the mix­ture. A slight hint of ouzo in the dough adds a spicy twist to the scrump­tious cook­ies.

Some also sug­gest freez­ing the olive oil before using it so that the dough for the koura­biedes becomes fluffier.

“Back in the day, peo­ple used to sink a bot­tle of olive oil into a well until it was ice cold, and then they would use it as the base for fra­grant, fluffy and gritty fast­ing koura­biedes,” home cook Roula Voulga said.

As part of the fes­tive spirit that takes over every­one dur­ing Christmas, a hot topic of dis­cus­sion in Greece is whether to opt for melo­makarona or koura­biedes.

However, when in a Greek home dur­ing the fes­tive sea­son, vis­i­tors will likely be treated with a pair of a melo­makarono and a koura­bie nested together on a plate.

And so, the eter­nal ​‘melo­makarona or koura­biedes’ dilemma has been answered.

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