On my recent trip to Crete, I passed from the orange villages of Chania, there at the foot of the snow capped White Mountains. Flowering almond and loaded orange trees. Divine landscape beauty that I will never forget.
Georgia, a beloved friend skillfully made us cookies and with all of her love has given us the recipe. These cookies are exported to Japan, they are handmade with exquisite, organic, materials. Flour from a stone mill and other materials from their farms.
If you slacking and want your cookies prepared, you can find them also at a delicatessen.
From Georgia Perraki of Cretan Bakery, Fourne, Chania
Ingredients
250 g. butter at room temperature
170 g. powdered sugar
8 fresh eggs
4 tablespoons thyme honey
1 natural vanilla stick
250 g. broken almonds
1 tablespoon rosewater
20g. baking powder
1500 g. strong flour 70%, «approximately”
For finishing
1 egg
1 teaspoon rosewater
100 g. almonds with the peel
How to prepare
In the mixer put the sugar and butter and whisk vigorously with the whisk until it is «fluffy».
Add the eggs, honey, vanilla and continue beating slightly.
Sieve the flour and add the baking powder.
Pour slowly the flour while beating in the mixer with the hook. Finally add the almonds and rosewater.
You may not need all the quantity of flour. The dough is prepared once it unsticks from the sides of the bowl.
Cover the bowl with the dough with cellophane film and leave in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to «rest.»
Shape the dough into biscuits and array on a baking tray where we have placed a greaseproof paper.
In a cup, add the egg, beating it gently and pour the rosewater.
With the brush «pass» the cookies, «egging» them as said in the Cretan dialect.
Preheat the oven at 200 oC and bake the cookies for 18 minutes until they get a golden color.
Let them cool without covering.
Serve round on a platter and pour the almonds. The Cretans tend to offer them with raki. On holidays they decorate the platter with almond blossoms.
If we want to preserve our crunchy cookies we place them in a metal box we’ve paved with parchment paper.
Small Secrets
In the cookies that I made I threw also orange zest and half a glass of fresh juice for a more flavored taste …
