Gluten Free Greek Cookies – Kourabiede
These cookies (Greek Butter Cookies) are absolutely exquisite! Some call them wedding cookies, others Christmas cookies, I just call them out of this world cookies! They’re buttery, crumbly, sweet, but not too sweet, the perfect treat and gift.
Prep: 25 minutes
Baking: 12 minutes
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 150g of Isabel’s Cassava flour
- 50g cornflour (optional, if you can’t use cornflour, substitute with arrowroot or use 200g of Isabel’s Cassava flour)
- 250g butter, cold (Lurpak unsalted or slightly salted)
- 150g whole almonds roasted and then grounded (grounded almonds will do, just place it on a heavy based pan and toast it until slightly golden).
- 50g pistachios to add lovely flavour and colour to your cookies.
- 80g icing sugar
- 1 tbsp rose water (optional, if you don’t like rose water, then choose your favourite flavour, lemon, orange blossoms or almond will work well in these cookies)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp baking powder
- a pinch of salt, (if not using salted butter)
- lots of icing sugar for powdering
Method
1
- Preheat the oven to 160C fan assisted. To prepare these cookies recipe start by roasting the Cassava flour on a heavy based pan on a medium heat and gently roast the flour for about 5-8 minutes steering constantly to prevent the flour from burning (if you have a well-seasoned cast iron pan it would be perfect for this!). You just want to lightly roast the flour until it has a light cream colour and an almost nutty smell and flavour. When the flour is ready remove it from the pan and place it in a large bowl and allow to cool down completely.
- Place the almonds (150g) on a baking tray and sprinkle with a few drops of water. Bake them for about 7-8 minutes, until roasted, being careful not to burn them. When the almonds are ready, place them in a food processor until they are finely grounded. Don’t worry if there are some rough bits left, it all adds to the texture. Place the grounded almonds in the bowl over the toasted Cassava flour and set aside to cool down.
- Add the pistachios into the processor and blend until powdered and place into the bowl with the flour and the ground almonds.
- Now you can do this next stage in a food processor if you wish, but for this small quantity I wouldn’t bother with the food processor personally. Once all the toasted ingredients are super cool, add to it the other dry ingredients such as baking powder, 80g of icing sugar, (salt if using any) and mix well.
- Then add the cold butter and flavourings; mix with wooden spoon until all the ingredients are well combined.
- For the cookies to remain fluffy, it is important that the butter doesn’t warm up and melt. So be patient and wait for a while for the roasted ingredients to cool down, before adding the butter. It is a good idea to wear plastic gloves if mixing by hand, so that the temperature of your hands doesn’t warm up the butter.
- Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes before shaping the cookies.
- Take 1 Tbsp of the dough and shape into a ball and place on lined baking tray and gently push with your finger to flatten a little and to form a little dimple in the middle. There are other traditional ways of shaping these cookies, but please make it your own and shape your cookies as you wish. Continue with the rest of the dough.
- Place the baking trays with the cookies in middle rack of the oven and turn the heat down to 150C. Bake for approx. 10-12 minutes, until the cookies have a very light cream/golden tint and are cooked through. Be careful not to overbake them.
- Do not touch your cookies, leave the cookies to cool down completely. If you try to lift them, while still warm, they will break!
- Spray the cookies with rosewater or your favourite flavouring and dust them with lots of icing sugar. Keep the cookies in an air tight container and enjoy!
