These cookies are unlike any other cookie I’ve made before (and that’s saying a lot since I’ve made tons of different kinds).
These Greek olive oil cookies are hard and aren’t especially sweet. Some people will flavor their Greek olive oil cookies with brandy or specialty spices. Since I’m personally not a fan of most of those flavors, I skipped them and kept it simple with a hint of orange flavor and cinnamon. Instead of being difficult, we’re sticking with ingredients that you probably already have on hand. In fact, not very many ingredients since they use olive oil as the fat instead of butter or lard (which is where they get their name).
Some people will shape these cookies into twists, like I did, or make them into a circle like a thin bagel. I tried shaping the cookie dough into circles but it wasn’t working for me. Oh well, I can’t win them all. Plus, I can’t complain since they came out beautifully.
I highly recommend grabbing a cup of coffee, especially a Greek coffee, to go along with these delicious treats. I guess it’s a good thing that the circle shapes didn’t cooperate for me because the twists are much easier to dunk into a cup of coffee. 😉
Koulourakia Ladiou Recipe
(Makes about 27 cookies)
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
- zest from 1 orange
- 1/2 cup orange juice (equivalent to about 1 orange)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 cups plus 3/8 cup all purpose flour (equivalent to 405 grams)
- about 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place a silicon mat or parchment paper on a cookie sheet and set it aside.
- In a big bowl, mix together the olive oil, sugar, cinnamon, and orange zest. These are the wet ingredients.
- In a small bowl, mix together the orange juice and baking soda.
- Add the orange juice mixture to the bowl of wet ingredients and mix everything together.
- Gradually mix in the flour. (* See note below.)
- On a very lightly floured surface, take about 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of dough. I use a medium Oxo cookie scoop to help portion each cookie consistently.
- Roll the cookie dough into a rope that is about 6 inches long. Only use extra flour if the dough sticks to the surface. Don’t use too much flour because if you overshoot then the sesame seeds will not stick.
- Bend the dough in half and then twist it three times.
- Pour the sesame seeds into a shallow bowl.
- Dip the tops of each cookie into the sesame seeds.
- Place each cookie on the cookie sheet, 8 per cookie sheet.
- Bake them for about 17 to 20 minutes or until they are lightly browned. (I baked mine for 18 minutes.)
* Start with 2 and 1/2 cups (equivalent to 300 grams) of flour. Keep in mind that the weather can affect the amount of flour you need. The goal is to get a cookie dough that is not especially sticky when you touch it.
Adapted from: herbs & flour
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It would be nice to have all the nutritional facts included on this page, Such as calories per cookie, fat, sat fat, sodium, carbs, sugar, protein etc.
These cookies do sound good to make.
Hi Carol, I appreciate the suggestion. Since I’m not a nutritionist I am not comfortable giving out such important information. Thankfully the internet has a variety of free sources to use if you are interested in the nutritional information for recipes.
Thank you so much for stopping by!