Moustokouloura (Grape Molasses Cookies)

More baking adventures...

I made 1/4 of the original recipe (the original recipe is below), which produced 8 ~2" cookies.  The smaller quantity might be why my oil and sugar mixture hardened so quickly.  I also added a light glaze to the rather plain cookies.  Full recipe yields 25-30 cookies.


1/2 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of grape molasses (petimezi)
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of brandy
1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
1/2 cup of orange juice
1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
6 cups of all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).  Dissolve baking soda in the brandy.  Whisk together the flour and baking powder.  Combine oil, grape molasses, and sugar in a saucepan, stir well, and boil for several minutes until completely blended. 

 

  

Transfer to a mixing bowl, and stir in brandy (with dissolved baking soda), orange juice, cinnamon and cloves.  Add flour mixture slowly; combine thoroughly.

 

 

 

Using pieces of dough, pat into thick cookies (about 1/2 inches high) in round or oval shapes.

 

 

 

Place on cookie sheets and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes. Cooking time will vary slightly depending on the size of the cookies.

 

These directions are all messed up.  Boiling the sugar mixture made it turn hard and it fully separated from the oil.  Seems unnecessary.  What if they were made in the usual way (sift dry ingredients, blend wet ingredients, combine, or follow the directions in the alternative recipe, below)?

Conclusion:  They turned out dense, tough and bready, but actually had a nice flavor.  Not very sweet.  Very much like gingerbread, and they improved overnight.  Would benefit from some currants, and perhaps a drizzle of glaze (maybe chocolate).   Also, some texture would be good -- maybe half whole wheat flour, wheat bran, or semolina. 

Recipe:  Greek Grape Molasses Cookies (Moustokouloura) (Grape Molasses Cookies) via About.com Greek Food (the Spruce Eats)

 

 

Another recipe option to try:

Moustokouloura (Μουστοκούλουρα) via Organically Cooked from Traditional Cretan Cooking by Nikos
Psilakis (co-author)

1 cup of grape must
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of oil
1 shot glass of brandy
3/4 cup of natural orange juice
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1 teaspoon of ground cloves
2 teaspoons of baking powder
2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 kilo (8 cups) of all-purpose flour

Mix all the liquids together. Add all the remaining ingredients, except the flour, and mix well. Add the flour and mix it in quickly to get a soft pliable dough. The classic shape of the cookie is a round one with a hole in the middle (kind of like a doughnut), but you can also make finger-shaped cookies. The baking sheet does not need to be greased. Cook in a moderate oven for about 25 minutes; the cookies will turn golden brown, depending on the colour of the grape must, but they should not be overcooked.

Or this one from My Little Backyard Lemon Tree.

 

Grape Molasses and Tahini Rolls

 

I so wish I had remembered to take a photo of these before I baked them.  It was a sorry sight, and I was sure they were going to bake up into runny hockey pucks.

I thought I had worked with puff pastry before, but nothing about it seemed familiar.  The (purchased) dough was very soft and unforgiving, and one of the first things I noticed was that the sheet was much smaller than expected, about 12x12".  I knew 1.5 cups of filling was going to be too much, so I reduced it to half.  (I think that was still too much.)

It rolled up fine, but as soon as I started to cut the slices it squished into a sticky, messy glob.  I suddenly found myself wondering what were the cautions I'd read about with puff pastry -- something about the edges that would cause them not to rise.  I couldn't remember, but whatever it was I was sure I was violating every rule.

So I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. As the recipe warns, these are not very sweet, but sweet enough, especially since they are very rich.  In fact, while I love the flavor combination (a sort of Middle Eastern take on peanut butter and jelly), I would like to pair it with a less rich dough, since tahini is already very high in oil.  (But the crispness of the puff pastry is so nice!)

I did not bake on parchment paper -- with all the released oil, these slid around loosely on the pan.  I baked them 4 minutes longer; at 15 minutes they were just golden, but I was concerned the centers might be squishy.  The sugar was just starting to burn on the bottoms at 19 minutes, but the centers were still too soft for my taste.  I think reduced filling would help with that.  (I would spread it very thinly next time, and consequently add sugar.)  Also perhaps using an air-bake pan.

Conclusion:  Delicious, a different flavor from the usual, and easy to make.  But I'll be making some adjustments next time.

Recipe:  Grape Molasses and Tahini Rolls via Taste of Beirut