Greeks don’t need to substitute and invent intricate vegan cookies, as the most common ones we make at home, or buy at the bakeries all over the country, are usually baked with olive oil instead of butter.
I got the recipes from my mother and grandmother and I only slightly tweaked them.
Both most favorite cookies –the Koulourakia with Orange, and the dark deep-flavored Moustokouloura Cookies, were baked using olive oil and no eggs.
Americans and northern Europeans are not the only ones loving their crunchy, fragrant cookies. Greeks usually accompany with cookies their coffee in the morning or afternoon. Home cooks, who used to make them all year round, kept them in a jar or tin box and we enjoyed them any day of the year, including the lengthy Lenten periods, like the days before Easter when all kinds of foods deriving from animals were avoided.
The recipes didn’t change, and our most favorite cookies –the Koulourakia with Orange, and the dark deep-flavored , Moustokouloura Cookies, were both baked using olive oil and no eggs.
These days more and more people have started to bake with olive oil; it is not just me any more. Cooks all over the world bake lovely, moist olive oil cakes, and I hope soon they will also make variations of these traditional Greek cookies that I have learned to make, or at least help shape since I was a child, together with my grandmother, and my mother.
Try also my older recipe for the traditional Easter, yellow Saffron, Allspice, and Pepper Biscuits, from the island of Astypalaia. They are neither vegan –they have yogurt and cream– and they are savory, perfect to serve with drinks and meze, especially with fresh, creamy cheese.
I am sure you will love them!
