Greek Christmas Filled Cookies

Cookies/Finikia/Melomakarona, a recipe from the East full of aromas and memories of lost homelands! Stuffed, traditional, Lenten and syrupy cookies.
The syruping is done in a saucepan and while the syrup is kept warm on a very low heat.
We prepare Finikia, which are consumed during the Lenten days before Christmas but also as a sweet delicacy for Christmas and New Year's Day along with the other Christmas desserts of the Twelve Days, such as Melomakarona, Kourabiedes, hills of fried honeyed Diples fragrant and fluffy Vasilopites! And even Isli, Christmas Bread, Kouloures, New Year's Loukoumades, Pancakes and other local sweets, festive, symbolic and ritual, that are prepared in every corner of Greece.
Yours!

Merry Christmas 2024! 🎄
Happy Holidays!

work: 1h:00′

time: 1h:30′

easy:

Traditional Kalitsounia of Chania, Crete

In the traditional agricultural and urban Cuisine of Crete, the products that the rural populations, for centuries now, produce and consume on their own until communications changed, so that they can find them elsewhere inside or outside of Greece, played a leading role.
Some of these products had their place of honor on the big, important festive days of Christmas, Easter, August fifteenth… Then the housewives made the famous Kalitsounia in large quantities for family but also to friends, neighbors and visitors.
Today's Kalitsounia have their roots of Chania, whose inhabitants, due to the soil morphology of the place, had the main occupation of grazing sheep. As a result, dairy farming was a parallel profession, so that they could make use of the milk they had in the mountainous area of Psiloritis.
Try them!

※※※※※We wish you a Happy Easter 2021!※※※※※

work: 3h:00′

time: 3h:00′

easy:

Brioche Burger Buns

Brioche dough tends to be heavy, as it is an enriched dough. This means that, in addition to the usual suspects to make bread, such as flour, water, salt and yeast, brioche dough includes egg, butter & full-fat milk. These buns, however, are light, airy, soft. So we have an enriched dough with a great taste, and not a heavy dough, with which brioche is usually made.
Making these homemade buns, with a neutral taste, so that they can be made sweet or savory choices and to enjoy them in many different ways:
☛ Plain to accompany a meal or make sandwiches & hamburger. Since they are not sweet at all by choice.
☛ Plain to accompany a meal or make sandwiches & hamburger. Since Cut in half and spread with butter and jam for a pleasant, hearty breakfast, they are not sweet at all by choice.
☛ Filled with chocolate, praline, jam of our choice or chestnut cream spread, like the ones here, to make them more festive… and which are our preference for Christmas Day.
You decide, choose and make the most delicious fluffy brioche buns for incredible combinations.

Yours!

Merry Christmas!

work: 1h:00′

time: 4h:00′

medium:

Custard Filled Pastry Torte

Custard Filled Pastry Torte-Galaktoboureko, festive and favorite!
AND YES we celebrated a Birthday with this syrupy dessert and it eaten to be lukewarm, consumed with great appetite and some (everyone?!?) loved it!
Simplifying the procedures in the dilemma of the term «Birthday Cake» the decision was made and the balance was set in this suggestion here as time and conditions were very limited… It Just very easy with ingredients like fine semolina to make air-foam pastry cream, fresh butter, crunchy pastry sheets, fresh eggs and a light aroma syrup orange. Classic, that is, without the risk of failure and with the phyllo making small crisp nests to embrace the cream. Decorated with a little orange jam and grated pistachio.

Happy Birthday my Baby!

work: 40′

time: 1h:30′

easy:

Christmas Apple Cake with Yogurt Glaze!

Christmas and festive - that's why we like it - fluffy and light Apple Cake, not butter but with olive oil. Covered with a very special glaze, made from the same ingredients as this Apple Cake. It keeps it fresh and gives it a pale white veil through which the currants appear as small black splashes.
Although winter has been mild enough for us so far, the heaviest Winter is out of our reach. So it requires simple but well-balanced foods and pastries. Today's proposal is one of them and we suggest you try it…
Yours!

work: 20′

time: 1h:00′

easy:

Happy New Year 2019!

Happy New Year 2019!

Health, Love, Happiness to Everyone!

Zambia Sifaki

Christmas 2018

🎄
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our friends, wishing you health, peace and happiness!

Zambia Sifaki

Pork Roast in Beer

It is a main dish full of flavor. Bavarian origin and the stars of the show are two of Germany's favorite ingredients: pork and splendid beer!
The ingredients for this delicious roast are a few: pork, olive oil, rosemary, garlic, spices and - the magic element - beer.
The meat is marinated in a bottle of beer, orange juice, lemon & in seasonings, then placed in a hot oven, covered as in a hull, for ~2 hours to be cooked and browned roast and the accompaniment the potatoes. Approximately two hours after, you have the most juicy interior and crisp outside tasty Sunday meal you can imagine. The meat melts with the touch of a fork and in combination with the crisp potatoes they offer wonderful tasting moments.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 3h:00′

easy:

Almond Pears-Amigthalota

The Argosaronic Islands, Cyclades, Dodecanese and all of our islands -and not only- make and celebrate with these Amigthalota/ Almonds Pears, snowy sweets of joy and hospitality to welcome new life, new names, new beginnings, and new pleasures. Snowy as the purity of the happy moments of our life and flavored with the essence of the blossoms of the sour orange.
As many as our islands are so many variations of this simple and such a beloved delicacy. Grated almond, egg white and fine semolina make up the basic principle to make these fragrant sweets and smell the home tradition and joy!
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 1h:00′

easy:

Vasilopita Brioche 2018

It is always an excellent idea to welcome the New Year with delicious homemade savory and sweet dishes. As for the more traditional sweet, Vassilopita, it can be made in various shapes and ingredients for all tastes. Everything is just as delicious and they belong to the Christmas period of Greece. Prepare your Vassilopita sweet or savory - because there is this version in many of our areas - and bake it to beautify the house "feast!". Regardless of the taste you prefer best, do not forget to hide a coin inside!
Vassilopita without coin is not done.
This beloved version of Vassilopita Tsoureki is an easy and light-to-mouth version of traditional brioche. Our own was made with the new olive oil from our own olives, which just arrived at our house from the olive press. He was kneaded in Vassilopita and the satisfaction was great.

Happy New Year 2018!
Health, Love, Happiness to Everyone

work: 45′

time: 4h:45′

difficult:

Gingerbread Bundt Cake

It is not a simple Cake, it is a festive, spicy and very aromatic Cake. As you prepare it and its aromas flood your kitchen you will automatically have the desire, the mood to sing the carols softly, whatever Christmas carols come to your mind even if you are particularly dissonant.
It is a cake with molasses, with sweets ginger and lots of spices, filled with the inside of it with fluffy cheese cream. Outwardly a candied sugar cloud is all it takes to let its perfumes overflow and disperse in our palate.

Happy New Year
Health, Love, Happiness to everybody

work: 20′

time: 1h:10′

easy:

Edible Christmas Tree

Cheerful, festive and very childish like the hands that helped to make this cake and built it as they like. Colorful & optimistic & snowy with coconut & Christmas lights colored candies & with a caramel star at its top, with lots of joy!
Dedicated to all children, young or old, Christmas Celebrations - the latest and most impressive of the year - shine in their eyes and soul, full of expectation and joy! From our home to yours:
Merry Christmas!
Health, Love, Happiness to Everyone!

work: 15′

time: 1h:00′

easy:

Melomakarona - Greek Christmas Honey Cookies

Melomakarona the Greek!
Melomakarona is a famous Greek delicacy to enjoy the Christmas season. They are made with flour, semolina, beer, olive oil and fresh butter from sheep and goat of unique flavor, stuffed with nut and dipped in syrup of honey, sugar and mandarin with extra grated nut with spices to sprinkle them on top.
Oriental spices, honey and citrus aromas to smell our homes during Christmas, this beautiful and hopeful celebration of Christianity!

Happy Christmas!
Happy Holidays!

work: 1h:00′

time: 2h:00′

easy:

Dauphinoise Potatoes

Potatoes Dauphinoise believed to come from the Dauphiné region of France.
A rich, classic and delightful example of French Cuisine to turn a simple potato dish into something more exciting and luxurious for extra festive banquets. This classic potato dish with the grained surface with a rich, creamy interior is always one of our favorite dishes, which accompanies our Christmas Dinner and is ideally matched with red meat and poultry.

Happy Holidays,
Merry Christmas!

work: 30′

time: 1h:45′

easy:

Coconut Truffles

Truffles are always a favorite sweets of a bite, made without baking most of the time. It is economical and very easy, unlike the deliciousness and pleasure it offers us. Either as a gift or as a treat remains high in our preferences and kept in the refrigerator for whatever time we look for it to surprise us.
Our current proposal for Truffles coconut is gluten free and is a variation of previously published & already known recipe Coconut Truffles-Raffaello, that many of you have made and loved. Differentiation lies in the absence of almond (not excluding it if you prefer it) and the color added to make it more scandalous.
Easy and festive wear their pink dress and decided to make the first appearance at the premiere of Christmas dishes for this year.

Happy Holidays,
Merry Christmas!

work: 30′

time: 1h:30′

very easy:

Chicken Stuffed with Rice, Smoked Cheese & Dried Plums

The top of this stuffing of Christmas chicken or turkey, if you prefer, is smoked cheese, dried plums and freshly melted butter, which is usually used in our traditional kourabie. An extra flavor in the rice filling the chopped bacon but other secrets yet for a really festive meal.
Yours!

Happy Holidays

work: 30′

time: 2h:30′

medium:

Greek New Year's Lucky Cake (Vasilopita) 2017

The 2017 I want to be lucky, be sweet like candy, be bright and colorful to making our mood and bring into our lives the best and most important of what we want. Furthermore a pie for Santa Claus to contain all or wish to contain with lots of icing for hope, sweet optimism raisins, blanched for health almonds, candied Orange Peels for prosperity, soft butter for tenderness and love, and of course, colorful bonbons for happiness!
Yours!

※※※※※Happy New Year 2017!※※※※※

work: 30′

time: 3h:30′

medium:

Kourabiedes: Greek Christmas Butter Cookies

The Kourabiethes are the best known, loved and popular sweets in various forms and names in all Central Europe, Austria, Germany, and in some Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
In Greece is the most favorite Christmas dessert and although at first glance the sugared biscuit, crescent, circular or a mouthful, seems to be a rather unspectacular goody -only a little powdered sugar sprinkled upon a biscuit- between all the colorful Christmas buttered sweet cookies, truffles or chocolate treats is a clear favorite. The flavor and texture to win: It is a unique combination of butter and nuts and there is also the fact that melt in your mouth and have lovely crisp texture with roasted almond inside.
Follow the steps of the recipe and enjoy the tastiest kourabiedes ever!
Yours!

work: 1h:00′

time: 2h:00′

middle:

Christmas Chicken with Minced Meat Stuffing

A stuffing recipe for Christmas chicken or turkey with traditional stuffing of minced meat, not with livers, roasted pine nuts, black currants, sweet chestnuts and unique spices. An excellent stuffed chicken can be the main dish on the Christmas Table. It is recommended especially for those who do not prefer the turkey on size and taste.
Your kitchen will smell of Christmas aromas of spices, as it is baked in the oven. This roast stuffed chicken will indulge your palate!
Yours!

Happy Holidays,
Merry Christmas!

work: 1h:00′

time: 3h:30′

medium:

Melomakarona-Honey Cookies with Mavrodaphne

Melomakarona, the cousin of Kourambiethes, traditional Christmas sweets have their technique to get soaped in a delicious honey syrup properly, to be tasty and soft inside. The dough should be soft and fluffy to not become hard during baking and syrup to be viscous with a lot of honey and flavored with exquisite essential oils of orange but also the individual flavors of cinnamon and cloves.
The Mavrodaphne, this wonderful Greek product, gives tasty heady tones in melomakarona and as a final complement of all this comes the crushed walnuts to meet all of the above.
Yours!

work: 30′

time: 1h:15′

easy: