Greek Christmas Cookies (Kourambiedes)

Ingredients

3 sticks unsalted butter, soft

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup powdered sugar, plus additional for coating

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons orange juice

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

Directions

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the butter and salt and whip until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the sugar, egg, orange juice, almond extract and vanilla and beat until all of the ingredients are integrated. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add sifted flour to the butter mixture. Using a rubber spatula, remove the dough and transfer it onto a piece of waxed paper or parchment. Let sit about 5 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. After the dough has cooled, pinch off small pieces and roll them into about 1-inch balls between the palms of your hands. Place them in a single layer with space in between each, on a greased baking sheet. Repeat the process until all of the cookie dough has been rolled. Place the sheets in the oven and bake until the cookies are just slightly brown, about 15 minutes.  Using a spatula take off pan and set in powder sugar dusted platter. Be very gentle since they break if handled roughly or if you used too much flour.  If you want the powder sugar to stick on your cookies and to stay on no matter what or where they are placed or stored after dusting, the trick is you have to dust them right out of the oven. Cover with powder sugar. Cool. Cover again with powder sugar.

I hate it when they put cloves in these, but some Greeks take a whole clove and stick it in the center of each cookie before dusting with powder sugar.  The trick to dusting with powder sugar is to put about a cup of powder sugar into a metal sieve and dust on top of your cookies.

Holiday cookies should not only look festive but taste scrumpdilieshes. This recipe is taken from an old Greek cookie recipe famous throughout Greece.  Some claim that the recipe for Kourambiedes pronounced Koorampbeeaidaes is the only really true Greek cookie recipe that wasn’t modified, shared or taken from the Turks. In Symi (a Greek island)  they are shaped into palm size cookies cut with a cookie cutter into star fish.

These cookies make an elegant display at weddings as they look delightful in powdered sugar on doily dressed trays.  The cookie dough itself looks simple but the main idea is to get a dough that will not break apart when the cookie is taken out of the oven and dusted or will not crunch like a piece of toasted bread.  Doesn’t take much practice to learn how to make a trully original Greek cookie called kourambiedes.

The cookie dough is soft and melts in your mouth. Some adaptations are to add a half cup of finely ground almonds to the dough before shaping. The traditional kourambiedes melts in your mouth, has no nuts added and makes you feel sweetly grateful.

What I do to keep them fresh is to let them sit for several hours after dusting with powder sugar. I then use cup cake cup holders as individual doilies. I put one powdered cookie into a paper cup and store them in trays covered with waxed paper or in plastic containers in the freezer. The paper cupcake holders keep them separate and that way they don’t bump each other and they stay fresh and neat looking when served.  If you take them out of the freezer, let them thaw for an hour or two before serving.

Re: Solutions

The shirts and ties can be sent directly to Braden through a Nicaraguan courier service. I have that address if you would like. Also, it is cheaper to send me the shirts and ties and I can send a box to him. We have sent several packages to missionaries in his area in the past thirteen months. If you would like to donate money, just send me a check for the amount, I will deposit it in Braden's account and he can use his debit card to purchase the Liahonas. What an amazing young man he is. We are grateful for his love of the people whom he serves. 

Thank you.
Melanie

Solutions

Another week in the life of this missionary has flown by! I was thinking about how weird it is that we are in September now, which is just so strange of a concept for me. I remember last September as if it were yesterday. So bizarre that so much time has passed by. Also, Ben is at BYU starting his first Fall Semester...that was me 2 years ago. Ahhhhh! I am getting old. And let's face the facts, I'm getting bald and thin. I think that old age has already set in. ;) But I'm still just as cute as ever. Hahaha.

My new companion is from San Francisco, California (well, Concord to be exact). He is Tongan. He's pretty big, I feel even shorter now. His name is Elder Taufa. We have had a rather crazy week this week. Hopefully things will be semi normal this week. We did baptize a large family (in number, not size of people). There were seven people in this one family. And it would have been two families, but one of the women decided to go rebellious on us. We'll try to prepare her for this week. I don't let people run away from me too easily.

My companion and Elder Lundquist's companion left on Tuesday morning so we worked together Tuesday and Wednesday and my companion came Thursday afternoon. It was very hot. He came from the city of Matagalpa (the mountains), so he was a little shocked by the heat he felt when he got here, but he's been a trooper about it.

I am excited about this change and the new challenges and trials that await me. I know that changes are still rather bothersome, but I am getting used to being in a constant whirl of change. The constants: the people, the missionaries, the Gospel. However, the variants are strange and unpredictable: emotions, culture, understanding, etc. I am glad that I am adapting to other people's needs and wants and that I am learning to solve problems. Another fantastic realization. Generally when there's something that needs to get done, or there's a problem that needs to get fixed, people come to me. It is a truly humbling thing because it teaches me to listen, respect and love; it also teaches me that sometimes I really do not have any answers and that divine help is what I really need. Sure I may get tiffed at times when I get like five problems thrown at me at one time, yet I step back (figuratively, of course) and think, "This opportunity will never come again. How should you act? How do you want to remember this situation, with regret or with joy?" I try to keep myself in line.

We are preparing a fun baptismal activity this week. We might go to a little community about 5 km. away to go to a little pond to baptize. The goal is a family per area, or 9 families as a Zone. Now, this is not too difficult in theory considering the monthly baptismal statistics for this zone per month. Lately, however, things have been happening and the zone has been slipping into a little bit of a hard time. Some of it is due to the people we teach and other uncontrollable circumstances, while others like pride, disunity, and selfishness lead us father away from the miraculous successes we've been experiencing here. I am also trying to get like 5 men to receive the Aaronic Priesthood this week. That is so crucial for activity in the church here.

Receiving the Priesthood here allows the people to actually get to know the Branch President and receive a responsibility. The only problem out here is finding ties and white shirts. We try to make sure that the men have ties and white shirts, but they are very hard to find. I have found a place that sells used ties for $1, but the shirts are almost impossible to find.

Okay...so there are some ways you all could try and help the people out here a little bit. Saving one of those used white shirts that your husbands or sons never wears, getting rid of some of the ugly ties they decide to buy from China for $2 just for the bargin. Save those things, ask people in your wards, or your neighborhoods to do the same. Then, put them in a nice carboard box and send them out here! Also, out here, due to local circumstances, the Church provides a year's subscription to the Liahona for 20 codobas, or $1 (like 92 cents really). If you would like to help, talk to my mother about how to donate even a dollar to this fund. Then, I will make an order from Nicaragua for the Branches I help out. Two service opportunities, little sacrifice, HUGE meaning to these humble members and missionaries living out here.

Have a great week! Read your scriptures. Read with your families and spouses. Discuss how you feel and what you learn from the scriptures with the ones you love and you will be doing your own kind of missionary work! Pray hard. Serve even harder. Act. Decide. Be.

Love, Elder B