Greek Olive Oil Cinnamon Cookies – Kolourakia Lathiou
These delicious crunchy Greek cookies are only made with olive oil. Perfect little bites to go with your coffee or tea.
So Greeks love olive oil and they use a lot of it, actually the most from any other country. One of the reasons is because here in Greece, most recipes use olive oil even in desserts. Greeks fasted from animal products for religious reasons for over 200 days a year, so that meant many recipes with olive oil and no eggs or dairy. One of those sweet recipes are the much-loved Greek olive oil cookies.
We call them koulourakia lathiou. Koulouri means something that has a circular shape and lathiou refers to the fact that they are made with lathi which means oil.
These wonderful, crunchy cookies are only made with olive oil, sugar and flour-no eggs, butter or milk. I added cinnamon and a bit of orange juice, used some brown sugar and then dipped them in a sugar cinnamon mixture. I also like them a bit small and thin, this makes them crunchier and cuter in my opinion and perfect to dip in my Greek coffee.
These are easy to make, they require no mixer and bake in about 15-17 minutes. You only need to be careful when adding the flour; start with a less amount and then gradually add until you have a soft dough that is slightly wet, but definitely not dry otherwise you will have a crumbly dough and will not be able to roll them in these pretty shapes.
These are fairly low-fat and it’s the good fat too! They last for days in a cookie jar.
Greek Olive Oil Cinnamon Cookies – Kolourakia Lathiou
Ingredients
- ½ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup white sugar + more for sprinkling
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup orange juice
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon + more for sprinkling
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 Celsius).
- In a large bowl mix the olive oil, sugar and orange juice with a large wooden spoon.
- In a smaller bowl mix the flour with baking powder, soda and cinnamon.
- Start adding the flour to the olive oil mixture gradually mixing with the spoon. You should have a soft dough, but not sticky so you can roll into circular shapes. Be careful not to add more than needed. –I added a about 2 more tablespoons to get the right consistency, but it depends.
- Cover the dough and let it sit for 10 minutes.
- Grease a pan with a bit of olive oil.
- Make the cinnamon sugar mixture by mixing 2 tablespoons of sugar with ½ teaspoon cinnamon, blend well.
- Start making your shapes. For little cookies, I take about a teaspoon of dough and roll it out in a thin cord and then make the shapes. Dip into the cinnamon-sugar mixture on both sides-place on the pan.
- Bake for about 15-17 minutes.
- Let them cool and remove.
Image © 2016 Elena Paravantes
The recipe is good and inexpensive. I only lightly oiled the tray and they all stuck hard. Next time I’ll use baking powder.
Hello! That’s a great recipe! Thank you for the tip of the adjustment, approximately extra two table spoons of flour. I had only rye flour at home and no sugar but I had maple syrup. I substituted sugar for maple syrup (slightly less) and the still came very good. What I find really helpful in your recipe is that it’s producing a good quantity cause let’s be honest, it’s great to follow traditional recipes from like grandmas etc in Greece but their recipes often call for a kilo of flour, enough to feed the whole neighbourhood because nobody has such big families in Greece anymore. Most of the people I know are only children and are parents of only children 🙂 next time I ll make sure to have sugar and wheat flour! Many thanks again.
I stumbled across your recipe whilst searching for butter free biscuits these are delicious lovely and crisp, definitely a keeper thank you for the recipe