MELOMAKARONA

Recipe type: Sweet dessert
Category: Chef
Chef: Ariadne Pouliou
Preparation time: 2.30 hours
Waiting time: 2 hours
Pieces: 58

Materials:
300 g of extra virgin olive oil, 330 g of sunflower oil, 320 g of thyme honey, 150 g sugar, 165 g of orange juice, 235 g of lukewarm water, 640 g fine semolina, 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 20 g baking powder, 1 tbsp cinnamon powder, 1/2 tbsp of clove powder, 885 g flour for all uses.

For the syrup:
915 g sugar, 660 ml water, 5 tbsp thyme honey Melwdeion, Juice of 1 lemon, 1 cinnamon, 2 cloves.

For the garnish:
200 g walnuts passed in the blender.

 Implementation:

1. Put the 2 teaspoons of soda in the orange juice and dilute them.
2. I put Melwdeion thyme honey in a bowl and dilute it with lukewarm water.
3. In a large bowl I put the oil, extra virgin olive oil and sunflower oil, the juice with the orange and the soda, the semolina, the honey that I have diluted with water, the cinnamon and the clove. Let the mixture rise for an hour.
4. An hour later slowly add the flour with the baking.
5. I spread oil paste on my pans and I start to shape my melomakarona. If the dough is weighed you will have a uniform result. I made them at 50 gr each.
6. Place them in our pans leaving a small distance between them and bake in a preheated oven at 160 degrees for about 25 minutes. We want our melomakarona to get a bright golden red color so watch them may take more time.

Execution for the syrup:
1. Put the sugar, water, lemon juice, cinnamon and cloves in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once our syrup has boiled and is full of blisters, dip in 1 spoon, take it out and draw a line with your finger. If the line does not join the syrup is ready. For our recipe, the syrup should be lukewarm and the melomakarona hot.

Fitting:
1. Once our melomakarona are ready, dip them in the warm syrup, counting to 8.
2. Place them back in the pan and let them stand until you finish the process with the rest.
3. Sprinkle with the grated walnut kernels.