Happy Thursday, everyone! How’s your week been going?
Today is Holy Thursday, which means that we are three-quarters through Orthodox Holy Week – I cannot believe how quickly time has passed! It has been a whirlwind of clinical rotations, paper writing, and watching my mom whip up spectacular vegan dinners and one amazing vegan dessert that satisfies my late-night-paper-writing sweet tooth. With three days left until Easter, I’m sharing my parent’s adaptation on my Thea Goldie’s moustokouloura.
Thea Goldie was my godmother’s mother – I met her briefly when I was little so I don’t have any concrete memories of her. According to my mother, Thea Goldie was a feisty woman who could cook and bake like no body else… this cookie recipe is a testament to those baking skills.
It starts out with combining sugar and vegetable oil in the bowl of your stand mixer.
Then comes the “mousto” part of the moustokouloura…
WINE! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, wine. Mousto is the leftover residue of the grapes after they are crushed to make wine – since we don’t have any leftover grape bits, wine is a great (and easy) substitute. Crack open a bottle of your favorite red wine and pour some into the mixer (and maybe pour some for yourself!). We use a basic pinot noir but a merlot will work too! Just a word of warning – wine makes the color of the cookies… interesting. I’ll talk more about it in a minute, but if you are expecting totally brown cookies, you’re in for a surprise.
All that’s left is to combine the dry ingredients – flour, oat bran, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
And gently mix them into the wet ingredients.
Toss in some walnuts for crunch, mix, and you’re ready to go!
Form into two logs. Score the logs by making several shallow cuts ½-inch apart in the top of each log – this will help with ease of cutting later. Chill them for an hour and then stick them in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes until the tops of the cookies are set.
Yummy! Let them cool completely before proceeding.
As you can see in this photo, the wine turns the cookies blue-green! They are perfectly fine to eat – they just look a little different!
Then cut the logs into pieces (like biscotti!) and lay them on a baking sheet flat-side down. Bake the cookies again for 12 minutes, flipping the cookies over halfway through the baking process.
All that’s left is to dig in!
Enjoy these Lenten, vegan treats, everyone!
Your friend,
C
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup red wine
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup oat bran
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- In the bowl of the stand mixer, combine oil and sugar and mix to combine.
- In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, oat bran, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
- With the mixer on low, slowly add in the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Stir in the chopped walnuts.
- Form the dough into two equal logs, score the top of the logs ½-inch apart and chill in the fridge for an hour.
- Bake the logs in a preheated, 350° for 30 minutes. Let the logs cool completely.
- Using a serrated knife, cut the logs into pieces on the score marks. Lay the cookies flat-side down and bake in a 350° oven for 12 minutes, flipping the cookies over halfway through.
- Serve with your morning coffee or as a midnight snack – enjoy!
[…] a while (okay, almost every night), I crave a bit of dessert before heading to bed. While we make moustokouloura (Greek vegan cookies), sometimes a girl’s just gotta have something chocolately and rich! And that’s where […]