Olive oil is a base for many Greek traditional cookies. There are many kinds of these cookies starting with the famous melomakarona (honey cookies), moustokouloura (must cookies), Sousamokouloura (sesame cookies), krasokouloura (wine cookies) and Ladokouloura (meaning oil cookies) , each one having a unique taste according to the ingredients added.
Every Friday morning we have our Tupperware meeting and some of us bring along cookies, cakes, pies etc. Two Fridays ago we had tons of things to eat but I liked these koulourakia (biscotti) a Cretan lady had brought with her and asked for the recipe. I shall give you the exact recipe as it was given to me and you can make as many as you like. I made one fourth of the recipe and had quite a lot of cookies.
You know by now that I like to play around with the recipes so I added my twist to it. For a start I forgot to buy oranges so instead of the orange juice and zest I added ½ cup of lemon juice and the zest of 1 lemon. I added brandy and for the rest of the juice of the orange I added apple juice. When I finished with the dough I made half the way she suggested and in the other half I added 1 cup of those lovely craisins my blog sister Val sent me some time ago and 1 cup of roasted almonds.
When baking them, I had a misfortune which in the end wasn’t that bad but I was upset at the time. Just a little while after putting the tin in the oven we had power failure. They were nice and brown outside but inside they were still soft. So instead of baking them the second time for fifteen minutes, I cut them with the knife and spread them in the tin and they baked only with the warmth of the oven. They turned out great except that they lacked a bit of colour but tastewise they were great.
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Baking time: half an hour
Ingredients:
- 3 kilos all purpose flour
- 1 ½ glasses of sugar
- 4 glasses of olive oil
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 2 glasses of fresh orange juice
- 1 spoonful of orange zest
- 1 tablespoon of baking soda
- 1 ½ glass of brandy or red wine or tsikoudia or ouzo
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon of ground cloves
Extra optional Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of roasted almonds
- 1/2 cup of craisins
Directions
I forgot to ask her about instructions, so this is how I did them.
In the mixer bowl I added the olive oil together with the sugar and beat it for five minutes at full speed. I then reduced the speed to medium and dissolved the baking soda in the lemon juice and added it to the mixture. I added the lemon zest, brandy and the spices and finally I sieved the flour with the baking powder. I changed the beater and added the dough hook and kept adding flour until I had a soft dough which did not stick on my fingers.
With half the dough I made a roll which I cut into slices (about 1 cm) and without separating it I placed it in a lined baking tin. In the other half dough I added the craisins and the almonds and kneaded them in the dough. Again I did the same thing.
I am submitting this recipe to the Great Cooks Community, September 2008 – Biscotti Bake Off.
Tags: cookies and biscuits, Greek
wow! step by step pics explanation is really very good ivy! olive oil biscotti is really super!
These bicotti look good, Ivy. Somehow, I’ve not been to successful with my biscotti efforts so far. But I haven’t given up yet.:)
Ivy they look great…however aren’t they παξιμαδια? Sorry if I’ve daid the wrong thing.
Looks yummy Ivy. Bookmarked yours to try
It seems that there’s lots of power failures in Athens, Ivy! This would drive me mad too!!!! However, your cookies look fantabulous
. Your kids are lucky to have a mom that likes to bake so much!!!
Nice entry… looks delicious… will try it sure… thxs for sharing.. nice click…
Thanks, everybody for your lovely comments.
Peter, paximadia is something very hard. No these are definitely koulourakia, translated into biscotti.
Nuria, today, we had no internet all the day. They told me that the Greek telecommunications company were doing some work near my neighbourhood, it was just something local.
Hey sis…I am so glad you are still finding lots of uses for the Craisins. I love them in biscotti as well:D
Sis, I’ve made a few things with the craisins but don’t find the time to post them yet with all the food events going on. I shall not commit with other events as I have a lot of seasonal recipes to post and some of them are with craisins.
Looks good Ivy – I have never made biscotti.
Oh, these look great! I love the flavor of olive oil in sweet baked treats. I actually usually use olive oil in my brownies. I swear it makes them better.
Thanks for sharing!
+Jessie
a.k.a. The Hungry Mouse
Thanks Cake, they are very easy to make.
Hi Jessie. Thanks for visiting. I’m glad you found me here because I was trying to find you at Fuel my Blog. Thanks for the vote. I’ve added you to my reader and blogroll.
Using olive oil instead of butter makes them so much healthier and boy do I love biscotti! They look delicious
This looks delightful! I’m going to make them when my in-laws come to visit in a couple of weeks – my mother in law loves biscotti.
Hi Ivy! These look wonderful, I’ve never baked with olive oil before! I can’t wait to see how different it is from flavor and texture of the cookies baked with butter. Thank you for the recipe!
They look delicious Ivy!
Hey, thanks everybody for commenting.
Maria, I want to welcome you as it’s the first time you are visiting and I hope you will be visiting more often. Maria and I have become friends via e-mails but Maria is new to blogging and I have unofficially adopted her.
Kalos sas vrika!
How healthy using olive oil in the biscotti…looks fantastic….will give this a try for sure
That almost looks like a biscotti! Nice…
I have left answers to your queries on the choco-pistachio roll below your comment on my blog. Hope it helps.
Thanks, shall check your answer.
These sound wonderful Ivy! I’m starving right now and would happily eat these for dinner.
How delicious Ivy! I love biscotti. And koulouria
I have never made koulourakia myself…what a horrible Greek I am. I always just eat my yiayia’s when I see her. Hah. I need to make some myself!
Oh Ivy your biscotti really is lovely, this is something I have on my list of to do bakes having never made this as yet!
Rosie x
Bravo Ivy, they look great. My grandmother made ladokouloura regularly so I have a weakness for them.
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