Kourabiedes Recipe
- 1 cup butter
- ½ cup sifted confectioners’ sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon brandy
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 2½ cups sifted cake flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 36 whole cloves
- Rose water
- 1 cup confectioners’ sugar for dredging
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
- Prepare 2 cookie sheets. Cream butter until it turns white and fluffy. This could take as long as 30 minutes if done by hand, or 15 minutes with an electric mixer. Beat in the confectioners’ sugar and then the egg yolk, brandy and the extracts. Resift the cake flour with the baking powder and beat it into the butter mixture. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. If the dough is too difficult to handle at this point, refrigerate it until it becomes firmer. Place cookies on cookie sheets and center a clove in the middle of each one. Bake for 20 minutes.
- Sift a layer of confectioners’ sugar on wax paper and cool the cookies on the sugar. Drizzle drops of rose water on cookies, then sift more confectioners’ sugar on top. Sift another layer of sugar over the cookies after they have completely cooled. Store in an airtight tin. You can sift a final layer of sugar on the cookies just before serving.
