Hi, All! Today, I am sharing about the Greek traditional desserts for Christmas, the New Year cake with the hidden coin, and some delightful cookies too! These change shape in the oven and are the perfect fun thing to do with kids this holiday season. Enjoy, and happy holidays!

I love the Greek Christmas desserts you can see here but they present a problem for me each year. I can’t help myself and start eating them from very early in the month of December. By the time Christmas arrives, I have to look for trousers one size bigger to wear haha

But, looking at this picture from my local bakery, can you really blame me? Especially if you’ve tasted Greek Christmas desserts and know just how yummy they are.

Here they are, in more detail:

KOURABIES (Plural: KOURABIEDES)

These tiny round cakes have a solid dough that’s rich in almond chunks, and they are dusted heavily with icing sugar. They can also be found in the shape of a crescent. A classic festive prank in Greece is to offer someone a kourabies and dare them to say ‘Thothoros’ as they chew. This is just the Greek name for Theodore. It’s not the meaning, but the making of the sound that matters here. The result is always the same! A sprinkle of icing sugar emitted from the person’s mouth to dirty their own clothes. Not recommended in the times of covid – but it has to end sometime, doesn’t it? So keep in mind for later, if you’re a prankster. Trust me. It’s priceless.

MELOMAKARONO (Plural: MELOMAKARONA)

These golden delights can easily become a favorite, especially as in the recent years bakers and sweet shop owners have gone a step further to coat them with milk chocolate or dark chocolate! Personally, I never go for those, as I find them sickly sweet. The classic melomakarona of this picture are more than adequately sweet on their own. The taste is all in the honey syrup and the heavenly woody spices (cinnamon and cloves). Melomakarona come in soft and harder varieties. The softer the better, in my humble opinion.

DIPLA (Plural: DIPLES)

These pastries are fried, then sprinkled with chopped walnuts and drizzled with honey or syrup. The ones my mother used to make looked like short ribbons with serrated edges, and sometimes she’d fold them in thirds. The classic shape one can find in the shop, though, is the rolled up one you see in the picture. After all, the name Dipla is derived from the word Diplono, which means “To fold”. I have to admit that diples, being fried, are not the healthiest option, but they are definitely my favourite of the three, with melomarona following closely behind. Diples are crunchy and fluffy – a temptation I personally find impossible to resist!

Note: This is not a recipe post, as you can see, mainly owed to the fact that I’ve never tried my hand at making any of the main three Christmas desserts. It’s hassle-free at the bakery, if you ask me LOL! But, if you’re feeling eager to try, just google the name of the dessert with ‘Akis’ next to it, and it should take you to the site of famous Greek chef Akis Petretzikis. All his recipes are awesome! This is the one for melomakarona, for example!

 

Ok, so these are neither Greek nor Christmas cookies either, but I love to bake them on new year’s eve, then put them on a platter with chocolate coins for good luck. They look fantastic and the added bonus is they are not as punishing to your waistline as you’d think! There is no trace of chocolate or butter in them – instead, they contain cocoa powder and sunflower oil, but taste fluffy and chocolatey as if they were the real thing. I call them Magic Snowballs because when you put them in the oven they look like little white balls and then something whimsical happens! They start to change shape right before your eyes…

GO HERE TO GET THE RECIPE. THEY ARE PERFECT TO BAKE WITH KIDS. ENJOY!

 

Last but not least, this is the Greek New Year Cake with the hidden coin inside. It is called ‘Vassilopita’ and is baked on new year’s eve in honour of St Basil (the Greek version of Santa Claus). Check out my recipe here!

 

 

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