Kourambiethes

This week’s Rose recipe was Kourambiethes. I did a brief Internet search on kourambiethes and their cousins, the Russian tea cake and the Mexican wedding cake/polvorone. It’s a pretty basic recipe. Kourambiethes can have almonds or not, can be decorated with a whole clove or not, and are usually but not always shaped in a flattened sphere. The other distinguishing feature, which still doesn’t show up in every recipe, is beating the butter and the powdered sugar for an extra-long time to enhance the tenderness of the cookie. The RLB version, no surprise, includes the extended beating time, almonds and the traditional shape. Additionally, she clarifies the butter.

Here’s the photographic evidence of my latest foray into RLB baking :

Big ball of dough. I had some extra almonds, and decided to add them in at the last minute.

Little round balls of buttery goodness almost ready for the oven…

Now they’re really ready. In deference to the camera, I used a glass to flatten them, instead of my (impeccably clean) fingers.

Here are the baked cookies, still waiting to be bathed in powdered sugar. Which, by the way I am buying from Trader Joe’s now, because their powdered sugar doesn’t contain corn starch. I never liked the way corn starch tastes in powdered sugar, and was so happy to discover an alternative!

The finished product. My family ate them, but still wanted ice cream for dessert. I’ll chalk it up to our heat wave.