Traditional Greek Christmas cookies

Christmas is round the corner and I am already enjoying the festive spirit, drinking mulled wine and devouring the greek sweets I mostly miss this time of the year.  My great-grandmother  made them from flour and called them 'finikia', distingouishing them from melomakarona, the semolina based ones. Whatever the name and the main ingredient, melomakarona, as they are widely called, is a delicious  sweet and a popular offering during the Chrismas period, alongside 'kourampiedes', a sugar-dusted-butter cookie.

 There are many different ways to cook them; I chose the following recipe from my mother's friend, Magda, who always amazes us with her cooking.

Ingredients

 2 cups of olive oil
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of brandy ( I added black spicy rum, and it turned out fine)
1/2 cup of orange juice
zest of one orange
1 tsp of cinnamon
1200 g flour
2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the syrup

2 cups of honey (good quality)
2 cups of sugar
2 cups of water
1 orange cut in half
2 cinnamon sticks


First I make the syrup; it has to be ready and chilled and then add it to the hot from the oven baked cookies. I put the water and sugar in a medium sauce pan and wait until the mix comes to a boil; I then add the honey, the cinnamon sticks and orange and put the heat down.

In a big bowl I mix the olive oil, orange juice, zest and rum and start adding the flour, baking powder and soda, bit by bit, until it becomes one big ball. I start to knead it with soft movements until everything becomes one and it is easy to take small pieces and turn them into balls. To achieve the exact shape I used the cheese grader; I took each ball and pressed it against the grader and then rolled them into a curved shape. I will then put each one next to another on a baking paper, on a flat tray and into the oven to bake for 30 to 40 minutes on 200. They will be ready when they are cooked through but remain kind of soft in the centre. Hot from the oven I place them in the syrup and leave them in for 2 to 4 minutes depending on how much syrup I want them to absorb. I place them on a tray and sprinkle crushed walnuts on top.

Because they can get dry and hard after some days I kept some baked cookies  in order to reheat them and put them in the syrup another time.