Greek Cookies - Kourambiethes

I was feeling ein yesterday (Thursday), like I've been feeling off in the sense of not really restless but not fully stressed out yet, but ein. The best thing I've found that can relax me is to bake. So that's what I did yesterday. I found a recipe for Greek cookies, they're kind of like shortbread cookies covered in powdered sugar. 

I found it cool this recipe asked for vanilla powder, which I have only because I bought the wrong thing once and then was like "the heck am I ever going to use this for???" aaaand so that's why I chose this particular recipe but then when I actually made it lol I forgot it said "powder" and just used extract. haha ça vallait la peine!! haha silly girl! anyhoo, here's the recipe:


1 cup unsalted butter 
1 tbsp Crisco vegetable shortening (to grease the pan, I just used parchment paper instead)
½ cup sugar 
1 egg 
½ tsp baking powder 
1 tsp vanilla powder (can use extract)
6 tbsp almonds chopped 
3-4 cups flour 
3 cups sifted powdered sugar

Beat butter and sugar until creamy or aprox. 15 minutes. Add eggs, vanilla, baking powder, almonds. Mix well. Gradually add flour to make soft dough. Mix to incorporate.
Pinch off pieces of dough and shape into small mounds or crescent shapes and place on greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until very light brown. Cover cookies with powdered sugar.

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I always make things by hand, it's more fun that way. Or you could just say I'm too lazy to wash the mixer haha

My butter was fresh out of the fridge, so what I usually do in those cases is melt it down a bit in a small saucer on the stove (don't own a microwave). I did this yesterday as well, but ended up melting it completely so then I had to cool it by sticking said saucer in a bowl of cold water. Wouldn't want hot butter to cook my egg. That would be bad. 
When it was cool enough, I added it to my sugar and mixed well. You never quite get that creamy texture when it's still warm. I ended up putting 3 cups of flour because that's what the recipe said, but I think if I make this recipe again, I'll stop at 2.5 cups. 
The cookies turned out really good regardless of the differences from what was supposed to be and what was. I didn't bake the full batch, I filled 1 baking sheet and put the rest of the dough in the freezer for some other time. Works out well, I have a friend who wants to meet up with me in a week and she wants some. It'll be a lot faster to just bake and dress 'em than to make them from scratch again.

And what's great about all of this, is that I can still eat 1 a day and be within my "limit" of sorts on the road to my weight loss goal =D How awersome is that!