Vicky’s Original Recipe:

Pauline’s Greek Koulourakia with a Twist (AKA Friendship Twist) 

For the vanilla dough:

  • 5-6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 t. baking powder
  • 1/2 t. baking soda
  • 3 sticks room temperature unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 6 large eggs
  • 3 t. vanilla extract
  • 1 T. water

For the chocolate dough:

  • 5-6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 t. baking powder
  • 1/2 t. baking soda
  • 3 sticks room temperature unsalted butter
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 6 large eggs
  • 3 t. vanilla extract
  • 1 T. water
  • 1 cup cocoa
  • 1 T sugar
  • 1 T Nescafe
  • 1/2 block Baker’s unsweetened chocolate (melted)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350′ degrees. Prepare cooking sheets with light coating of cooking spray or parchment paper. In a large bowl combine all dry ingredients, set aside. Mix or beat butter until creamy; add sugar until fluffy. Add 5 eggs separately and incorporate completely adding vanilla extract. Slowly add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and add flour until dough is no longer sticky. Allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes. Weigh out 1 oz. vanilla dough and 1 oz. chocolate dough to make a rope, combining to create one rope, make the “U” rope, and bring the ends together, twist – (twisting into the shape of a cookie). Place on cookie sheet, beat the last egg in water to create egg wash (optional) and bake for 20-22 minutes until golden brown. Yield approximately 5-6 dozen.

Bob McCabe sent this recipe in because his wife Vicky Koutroubis makes this cookie. Bob is gluten intolerant and wanted to eat this cookie too. I redid the recipe and then realized that Bob doesn’t eat eggs. So I tried it vegan and it worked! I also made some with cinnamon and sugar and their family loved it!

Vanilla dough:

  • 3 sticks of butter/margarine 340 g
  • 1.5 cups sugar (300 g)
  • 5.5 cups gluten-free all purpose flour (1015 g)
  • 4 tsp baking powder (24 g)
  • ½ tsp baking soda (3 g)
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 6 eggs (300 g)
  • (add 1 tbsp water if not moist enough)

Chocolate dough:

  • 3.5 sticks of butter/margarine 427 g
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 5.5 cups gluten-free all purpose flour
  • 4 tsp baking powder (24 g)
  • ½ tsp baking soda (3 g)
  • 1 1/2 cup cocoa powder (180 g)
  • 3 tbsp sugar (15 g)
  • 1 tablespoon nescafe instant coffee (5 g)
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 6 eggs (300 g)
  • (add 1 tbsp water if not moist enough)

Options:

You can make white dough only, add 2 tsp of cinnamon to the dough and dip into cinnamon topping to make a nice cinnamon twist

Cinnamon topping:

  • ½ cup sugar
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon

To make the chocolate/vanilla twist, roll our equal amounts of dough into ropes, roll them together and twist and tie the bottom.

Directions:

Cream butter/margarine with sugar

Add dry mix and wet mix alternately and slowly until dough lifts off the edges.

To know if you need extra water, roll out 40 g of the dough into a rope twist and tie. If the dough cracks anywhere, add more water, 1 tbsp at a time)

Bake at 350 degrees. 15 min. or until tops are lightly browned.

VEGAN OPTION:

To make this cookie vegan, replace the eggs with non-dairy cream cheese diluted with water until it is same texture of egg. Add extra baking powder as it will be heavy. Some brands have non-dairy sour cream which is already in good texture. (Tofutti)