Day 7: Greek Almond Stars

This is a recipe I’ve wanted to try for a long time, and I’m glad I finally did! These almond stars, flavoured with brandy and vanilla, are among the prettiest cookies I’ve ever baked! They are very tasty and easy to make.

The original recipe is from Rena Salaman’s The Greek Cook. I had to change the measures a bit - especially the amounts of sugar and flour. Here’s my version:

For the dough you need

• 225g butter


• 125g sugar


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 2 egg yolks


• 3 Tbsp brandy


• 1/2 tsp baking soda


• 160g ground almonds


• 350g all-purposed flour


• a pinch of salt (only if using unsalted butter)


• plus about 100g confectioner’s sugar for dusting.

Set the oven to 175C. Combine softened butter, vanilla sugar, and sugar in a baking bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until creamy and white, then add the egg yolks and stir until well combined. Add the brandy in which you have dissolved the baking soda. Lastly, add almonds and flour and work the dough with your hands until you can form it into a ball.

Roll the dough about 1cm thick (the original recipe suggested 2,5cm but for me it was just too much and my cookie cutter is only a bit less than 2cm deep…). Use a cookie cutter to cut small stars. Bake the cookies until they almost start to get some colour - be careful, they burn very easily!

Once out of the oven, sprinkle some confectioner’s sugar on top. Take a big plate and sprinkle its surface with confectioner’s sugar, too. Let the cookies cool a few minutes, then transfer them on the plate and dust them with more confectioner’s sugar so that they are totally white.

Serve your stars with a cup of strong coffee!