Happy Christmas Eve eve! (Yes, that’s a thing, at least in my family.)
I made kourabiedes last Christmas, which are a traditional Greek cookie usually served at Christmas time. They are like a shortbread cookie with almonds and covered in confectioners sugar. This year I wanted to make a version of them without nuts for my family members who can’t eat nuts, so that’s what I’m sharing with you today.
The recipe requires only 4 ingredients but it can be a little finicky to make. It took me a couple of tries to get the recipe just right. I have a lot of tips in the kourabiedes post from last year that still apply to this recipe (minus the almonds) so feel free to check that out if you’re interested.
They are little crescent shaped moons covered in a lot of confectioners sugar. A lot. That’s the only way I roll with confectioners sugar. When it looks like there’s enough, add more. Try not to inhale the stuff and choke on it. I’m serious, it’s happened.
Kourabiedes (without nuts) Recipe
(Makes about 40 little cookies)
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter, room temperature (equivalent to 2 sticks)
- 1 cup powdered sugar/confectioners sugar (equivalent to 120 grams), divided per the directions
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour (equivalent to 300 grams)
Directions:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the room temperature butter and 1/2 cup (equivalent to 60 grams) of powdered sugar.
- Using the paddle attachment, beat the butter and powdered sugar for 15 minutes on medium speed
- After the 15 minutes are done, add the vanilla extract and beat it until combined.
- Add in the all purpose flour and beat again until it’s just combined. The cookie dough should be a tiny bit sticky.
- Chill the cookie dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- While the cookie dough is chilling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare the cookie sheet by laying parchment paper or a silicon mat on it. I use AmazonBasics baking silicon mats.
- Take about 2 teaspoons of dough and roll it into a ball. I use a small Oxo cookie scoop to help portion each cookie consistently. Then roll the ball into about a 2 1/2 inch log and form it into a C shape or crescent. (Keep the unused cookie dough stored in the fridge in between batches.)
- Bake them in the preheated oven for about 15 to 20 minutes or until they are slightly browned on the edges. (Mine took 17 minutes.)
- Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let them cool completely.
- Add the remaining 1/2 cup of powdered sugar to a bowl.
- Once the cookies have cooled, place each cookie into the powdered sugar and cover them completely.
- After you’ve platted them, dust them with additional powdered sugar on top. (More is better.)
Adapted from: My Little Expat Kitchen
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Hi Tina, thanks for this great recipe! We needed a nut-free version of this traditional cookie for a class project, and this fit the bill perfectly! I wanted to comment, however, that as written, this recipe may call for too much flour – our dough did end up in that terrible crumbly zone that you warn against. When I checked this recipe against your original, this one bumps the flour by 1/2 cup (likely to account for the loss of almonds), but in our experience this was too much. We salvaged things by adding a tiny bit of water to “stickify” things, but it would have been better to start with the 2 cups of flour and add in up to an additional 1/2 cup as the dough required. All in all, we still came out with OK cookies (and dusted with sugar, who can tell?) but they did not hold together well enough to roll into crescents – we just defaulted to the traditional round style of your previous recipe. Thought I’d mention it, as otherwise, this is a quick, easy and delicious recipe. Thank you!
Hi CHM! I needed a nut free version too and thought others might so I’m glad that you found this. 🙂
I appreciate you letting me know about the amount of flour. Everyone measures flour differently (if you don’t have a scale) so I hope that others who try this recipe look at your comment and start with less flour but then add accordingly (and then write down that amount for their personal notes for future bakes).
Lol… yes, it’s amazing how the powdered sugar can fix a multitude of things.
Thanks so much for stopping by and happy holidays!