Easter cookies with orange and cognac flavour

So, Easter is here again... At least for some of you since the Latin and Greek Orthodox Easter don't coincide this year. It is not my time for Easter recipes yet but since it is for most of the followers and passing-by readers of this blog I wished to honour them all the same! Keeping in mind that the eating habits are quite different I tried to choose some recipes that the foreign friends would not find troublesome or "weird" like some traditional Greek Easter recipes can be...:-) Lets start then with something really painless, easy to make and delicious. A recipe, one version out of so many, for Easter cookies that you can find around Greece. Enriched with orange and cognac this is a recipe which can be followed any time of the year to enjoy along with your coffee

Recipe from "Cook Book" magazine
of "ETHNOS" newspaper



Ingredients (for about 40 cookies):
8 tea-cups of all-purpose flour
2 tsp of baking powder
2 tea-cups of butter, at room temperature
1 ½ tea-cup of granulated sugar
4 egg yolks
1 tea-cup of milk
1/4 tea-cup of cognac
1 tbsp of orange zest (or lemon)

For brushing:
2 tbsp of milk
1 egg

Method:
Sift the flour with the baking powder together into a bowl.

In another bowl, beat the butter with the sugar with an electric hand-mixer for 2 minutes until fluffy and creamy.

Add the egg yolks, one by one, without stopping the beating. Add the milk and the sifted flour. Stop the beating and add in the mixture the orange zest and the cognac.

Knead the ingredients with your hands until you have a soft dough. *** If needed, add some flour or milk depending on how thin or firm the dough is.

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Lay with baking paper a couple of oven trays.

Cut the dough into equal small pieces, which you roll out with your palms so to shape into thin cylinders of about 30cm long. Twist each cylinder into a braid (see photo on top) and transfer on the oven tray, gently pressing the edges where they meet so not to open while baking. Continue in the same way until all the dough is used up.

Beat the egg with the milk in a small bowl and brush the cookies with the mixture.

Put in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until they are nicely golden. Allow to cool completely before you store in an airtight container or tin box.