Yes, the name is misleading. They're not even shaped like Koalas, let alone have koala in them. Disappointing, I know. I'll give you the explanation though - my family have loved these biscuits for years, finding them in random places, farmer's markets, Greek restaurants, and even some takeaway shops, but we've never known what they're called. One day, mum had a stroke of spontaneous genius and actually ASKED what they were called, and the resulting name was given as "Melomakarona" - a tad too difficult for our very suburban Australian tongues. So, we adopted an easier name that sounded vaguely similar - Koala biscuits.
Delicious, honey-y, cinnamon-y and indulgent, I love these biscuits too much, and was very excited when I found a recipe. You should get about 50 out of this recipe. To make these festive lovelies, you'll need:
Biscuits:
- 1 cup butter, chopped
- 3/4 cup caster sugar
- 3/4 cup sunflower or peanut oil
- Grated rind of 1 orange
- 6 cups plain flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/4 cup orange juice
Nut Filling:
- 1 Tbsp (or a bit more) of honey
- 1-2 tsp orange juice
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts
Syrup:
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
- 5 cm cinnamon stick
- 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
- Thin strip lemon rind
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius :)
To start off, beat the butter, sugar and orange rind until creamy.
Keep beating, gradually adding the sunflower oil until it's nice and light.
Sift in the flour alternately with the orange juice, and then knead the dough lightly in your hands for a minute. Then leave it there for a minute while you make the nut filling. Basically all you have to do, is mix the honey and the orange juice and stir it in well to the rest of the ingredients for the nut filling. Easy!
Now, take a small chunk (see picture for reference) of dough, and flatten it on a surface...
Like this. Then place a teaspoon of the nut filling in the centre of the dough...
And wrap it up like this! Make sure it's sticking together pretty well, or we could have biscuits going everywhere. Repeat until there's no more dough left. Note - you want to leave some nut filling for decorating the tops of the biscuits with, so don't stress if you run out of dough but still have plenty of nut filling. It's a good thing. Then, bake these yummies for 20 - 25 minutes until they're a goldeny-light brown. Cool them on wire racks.
Next, make the syrup. This one's pretty easy - place all the ingredients in a pot, turn on the heat to medium, and stir until the sugar dissolves. Then bring it to the boil over a moderately high heat for 10 minutes, and start the next step.
Place a few biscuits at a time (I'd say five if you've got a big pot?) into the syrup, and let them soak for 10 seconds on each side, then remove them and place them on paper towel to drain a little. Continue this process until you've finished all the biscuits. Then top them with the rest of the nut filling. And you're done!
Note - these biscuits can be made in advance, but only soak them in the syrup the day you intend to serve them. They make such great gifts (see below) and are just so darn sweet and yummy!
A gorgeous Christmas-time, or all-year-round treat! Enjoy :) x
