Another Turkish Scone Recipe from Emine (Koparma Kurabiye)
If you are a bit familiar with Turkish pastries that we make for tea time in Turkey, you might realize that when something is called “kurabiye” and translated as “cookie”, it does not necessarily mean your typical chocolate chip cookie. Kurabiye recipes normally have a hefty portion of softened butter, sugar, several eggs, and yogurt, made into a soft dough with flour. Their size and shape vary and they bake into this crumbly, buttery sweet dollops. I think of them as scones rather than cookies. Sometimes, you just have to refrain from word by word translations to get the real meaning across.
My grandma’s Koparma Kurabiye is one of these scone type cookies. The shape is irregular since you just have to drop a big dollop size piece on the baking sheet and that is it. No rolling, cutting, making a smooth ball etc. The original recipe calls for raisins and walnuts. I made with raisins first but the raisins which stick out of the dough got dry and burned very quickly. Second time around, I skipped the raisins and just went with pecans for a change.
One major lesson I have learned from making my grandma’s recipes is to always make half of the recipe! Since her recipes are for get-togethers and also to accomodate the family’s sweet tooth, it always yields a lot. So this is half of her recipe, and lasted for a week for the two of us. Not bad for our quick breakfast grabs!
Free Style Scones (Koparma Kurabiye)
Yields 8 pieces
- 1/2 cup (113 gr) softened unsalted butter (soft enough that you can mesh it with a fork)
- 1 egg (at room temperature)
- 2 tablespoons plain yogurt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup of granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts
- 12 oz all purpose flour
- A pinch of salt
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine and whisk softened butter, egg, vanilla and yogurt together in a big mixing bowl.
2. Add sugar and stir with a fork to combine.
3. Add half of the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir to combine.
4. Gradually add the rest of the flour and gently stir to combine either with your hand or with a spatula. Add the nuts and stir.
5. With your hand, take a piece of dough that is somewhat smaller than a tennis ball. Drop it onto a greased or lined cookie sheet.
6. Bake in preheated oven for about 40 min or until lightly golden brown.
8 Comments:
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8:32 pm
Aug 19, 2012Really nice recipe! Very easy to make and looks like it has great flavor. I know what you mean about grandmother’s recipes yielding way too much – I have some from a couple of different grandmothers, and the recipes can feed an army! Good post – thank you.
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8:36 pm
Aug 19, 2012Yes, feeding an army was the expression I was looking for but could not remember it while writing the post. :)
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8:33 pm
Aug 19, 2012A scone-like cookie! That’s combining two of my favorite things! (I’m learning to catch up on blog posts while nursing so excuse any typos on comments for the near future :-)
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8:35 pm
Aug 19, 2012That means Ruby got her start in blogging world as well? :) At least observing right now:)
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7:06 am
Aug 20, 2012I love the idea of avoiding the word-for-word translation, I find it robs the Koparma Kurabiye of its own identity. From your photos and the recipe, it definitely looks more like a scone. But it isn’t that. It’s something entirely its own and it deserves its own name! :)
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5:18 pm
Aug 20, 2012I’m a fan of anything scone-like, so I’d love to have these for breakfast or with tea! The texture looks light and lovely, and the pecans sound great.
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11:38 pm
Aug 20, 2012I love your scone recipes, they always make me want a couple…..why just take one right? :-) I love your addition of yogurt! Hugs, Terra
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4:42 am
Aug 22, 2012Don’t ya love family recipes?! Will love to try making this one day :)