Melomakarona, a delicious and good for you Greek Christmas treat, are made with olive oil, honey, orange juice, and walnuts, healthy and simple.

Ingredients:

For the Melomakarona

  • 400g. Orange juice
  • 530g. FOS 1704 Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 50g. butter, melted
  • 30g. powdered sugar
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
  • 1/5 tsp. cloves
  • Zest of one orange
  • 1200g. all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 pound chopped nuts for serving
  • Honey for serving

For the Syrup

  • 500g. water
  • 700g. sugar
  • 1 orange cut in two
  • 2 sticks of cinnamon
  • 100g. honey

Preparation Instructions:

Syrup

In a saucepan add water, sugar, orange and cinnamon sticks. Put on the fire, bring to a boil for 1 minute (from when boiling starts) and withdraw. Pour honey and let cool.

Melomakarona

In a deep pan pour all liquids and butter. Add the powdered sugar, baking soda, and spices all together. Mix by hand very well and add the flour. Continue gently stirring by hand from the center outwards (do not overwork as the dough will become firm).

Create oval shaped biscuits from the dough,  not very thin as they need to have a good body when baked.  Press them lightly with a sieve to give their top a coarse textured appearance.

Place them on a baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven at 180 °C for about 30 minutes until they get golden color. Once out of the oven put them hot to the cold syrup. With a ladle turn them for 1 minute. Remove them and let drain in a strainer.

In a bowl put a little honey and chopped walnuts. Place a layer of melomakarona and repeat the same process several times.

Tips

The melomakarona must always be hot when we put them in cold syrup. If we continue this process, the syrup will slowly warm up, so we should cool it by putting it in the freezer.  Alternatively you can split the syrup in 2-3 saucepans, so we can use them interchangeably.

Keep them in an airtight container as they tend to absorb moisture from the environment.