Melomakarona

Ingredients:

For the dough:

• Light olive oil, 220 ml
• Sugar, 50 gr
• Orange juice, 220 ml
• Lemon zest
• Orange zest
• Metaxa, 150 ml
• Baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp
• Fine semolina, 250 gr
• Flour, 350 gr
• Chopped walnuts, 150 gr
• Baking soda, 1 tsp
• Salt, a pinch of
• Ground cinnamon, 1 tsp
• Ground cloves, 1 tsp

For the syrup:

• Honey, 250 ml
• Sugar, 100 gr
• Water, 200 ml
• Lemon zest
• Orange zest
• Whole cloves
• Cinnamon stick

For topping:

• Walnuts (finely chopped)
• Ground cinnamon, 1 tsp
• Ground cloves, 1/2 tsp

Preparation:

For the dough:

Mix the olive oil with the sugar and the orange juice.

Blend half of the flour with the baking powder and the baking soda. Mix the flour mixture with the olive oil orange juice mix.

Add the metaxa, the walnuts and the semolina adn mix well. Add the salt, cinnamon, cloves, orange and lemon zest to the dough.

This should result in runny bur thick dough.

Now you have to knead the remaining flour into the mixture and knead until you have a humid, non sticky dough.

Let it rest for an hour.

Now you can form the little oval cookies that are just like oversized olives.

Place them on a lined baking tray. Press them with a fork jsut a loittle bit, so they get an inprint.

This the typical pattern of the cookies (we ommited this).

Bake the cookies in the preheated oven at 180 °C for 25 minutes. Then let them cool down.

For the syrup:

For preparing the syrup you have to just put all the ingredients into a small pan and let them simmer for a few minutes.

Dip the cookies into the syrup and let them soak for a couple of minutes.

Then place them on a roasting tray. They should sit on the roasting tray over night in order to soak perfectly.

You can check on them occasionally and even dip them once more. It is good to use up all the syrup that you made.

The cookies need some time to soak and will develop their taste fully over night.

(Be careful though that the cookies never sit for a long time in the syrup in order not to get soggy).

The next day place the cookies on a plate and sprinkele some crushed walnuts, the cinnamon and the cloves over them (we ommited this).