Long Beach Grecian Festival by the Sea Cookbook

Greek Easter Cookies (koulourakia) Bake: 15 -20 min Prep: 15-20 min Makes: 50 cookies   Greek Easter cookies have a long history dating back to the Minoan civilization in Crete. Made into a winding, twisting cookie in honor of the snake with its venom healing powers including drugs made to treat high blood pressure.   Ingredients 1 cup butter 3 cups flour 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder 2 eggs (reserve 1 yolk for glazing) Sesame seeds 1 tablespoon orange or lemon juice Cream butter and sugar together and then add eggs, one at a time (reserving one egg yolk for glazing). Beat until well combined. Mix in all wet ingredients.   Combine all dry ingredients and add to the mixture and beat well.  The dough should be soft but not sticky. Add more flour if necessary.  Roll a walnut-sized piece of dough constantly towards ...

The cookbook mentions that this cake or bread is eaten on New Year’s Day but as there is no mention of the significance of eating this bread, I dug around on the internet for background information.   What I learned (from American websites) is that it represents St. Basil’s way of re-distributing jewels collected by a village to pay a ransom that in the end they did not have to pay.   All of the jewels were baked into the cake and villagers each received a piece of the cake which miraculously contained his or her jewel(s) forfeited for the ransom.   In modern times, a coin is inserted into the cake batter and this whole event, cutting, distributing and eating the cake takes place just after midnight and naturally, the recipient of the coin is lucky for the year. There are two versions of this cake, one is a yeast bread and the other a sweet cake leavened with baking powder; both versions are in the cookbook. The sweet cake with baking powder has plenty of sugar (2 cups...