Greek Night, Part 3

For the final installment of the Greek Night series, we turn to loukoumades.

Loukoumades are Greek pastries, typically served as a dessert covered in honey, cinnamon and sugar. The pastries are made from ingredients commonly found around the house and are rather diverse; not only can you use the ingredients listed above, but you can basically use anything imaginable to cover these loukoumades.

Staying with the Greek theme, however, the recipe will focus on the cinnamon honey syrup. Enjoy!

Ingredients

Dough

½ oz. active dry yeast

½ cup water, warm

½ cup milk, warm

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

1/3 cup butter, softened

3 eggs

4 cups all-purpose flour

4 cups vegetable oil

Honey Syrup

1 cup sugar

Cinnamon, to taste

¼ cup honey

½ cup water

Process

Dough

Pour ½ cup of warm water into a bowl. Pour the yeast into the water and set it aside.

Mix the milk, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl until fully combined (the sugar should be fully dissolved).

Combine the milk mixture and the yeast mixture and stir until combined.

In a separate bowl, beat together the butter, eggs and flour until a smooth dough is formed. Cover and let rise for about an hour, stirring once after 30 minutes.

Pour the oil in a large frying pan on medium-high heat. With a teaspoon (or whatever is handy—ice cream scoop, etc.), scoop out the dough and place it into hot oil. You can try to make them into balls, but I found that to be rather difficult, so I just scooped them into the pan. Cook for about 30 seconds, or until golden brown, before flipping and repeating the process on the other side. Continue this until the dough is gone. This recipe makes about 15 loukoumades.

Honey Syrup

While the dough is rising, combine all of the ingredients into a small sauce pan on medium heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Keep warm until the loukoumades are finished. Dip the pastries into the honey syrup and let them sit for a few minutes before eating.

You can also cover them in cinnamon sugar, which is just cinnamon and sugar mixed together, or powdered sugar. Adding either of those with the honey syrup is delicious as well.

Taste Test

The loukoumades have a nice, crispy exterior while being moist and fluffy in the middle. Although the pastry itself is rather ordinary, the honey syrup brings a necessary sweetness and rounds out the dessert well. I experimented with the flavors and found that my favorite was honey syrup with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

Leftover Quality

Like most Greek food, it is best to eat these when they are fresh.