baking - day 2

Today,
in this morning,
I finished the first round of some of my "easy baking:
my own "Kourambiethes".
In latin cultures they are known as Wedding cookies,
but the Greek recipe does pre-date them by a few thousand years.

Not to be out done - i created my own recipe..
which is now posted below.
both yesterday and today i noticed significant differences in the baking.
The time for Baklava was shorted by 15 minutes,
It was not the oven,
today the  Kourambiethes took an additional 15 minutes,
but used less flour.
Now i know the quality of flour can vary because of the amount of gluten in it.
It varies,
crop to crop,
weather pattern to weather pattern during the growning season
and of course between varieties of wheat.
That will change the mixing and baking ability of the wheat.

Any way, here is the second days baking:

Kourambiethes

(Joe's version)

1 cup whipped butter
1/3 cup raw sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon TANG
1 teaspoon orange peel (candied is okay) or zest
1 teaspoon anise flavor
1 teaspoon water
3 or more cups flour
1 1/2 cup pecans
1/4 cup powdered sugar

These cookies are very light and fall apart easily - to make a firmer cookie add 2 eggs to the liquid mixture and more flour (i did this today)

Beat the butter 30 seconds then add sugar and TANG and beat till fluffy.

Add zest or peel, nuts, orange and anise flavor and water.
Add flour slowly, continue to beat until the mixture begins to  “ball” into clumps. (Sometimes I need to add more flour)
You may shape the cookie, keep in balls or “squash down”.  Your choice
Roll into balls and place on a baking tray and cook for 20 minutes at 350º F.
The cookies will have the edges just brown.
They must cool before removing from tray (but not cold).
Place on tray and cover with powdered sugar.
Eat at room temperature.