Cyprus Unit

Cyprus! About all I knew about the country before our Cyprus unit was Silas from the Bible was from there. Actually, let me go double-check that because I might be thinking of a different person. Oops, wrong person, it was Barnabas. I still don’t know super a lot about Cyprus, but it was a great geography lesson, and I learned a lot.

(might well be affiliate links in here, we’ll see)

Cyprus Unit resources

As per usual, with these slightly less famous countries in Europe, there are no books in my library for me to suggest to you. Instead, I’ve got our now traditional Geography Now video.

Future Ticia 2024 is going to add in some websites that I found, and also add in the Flag Friday video (and let me see if he’s added in any other videos since this was filmed).

• Cyprus Fact File
• Encyclopedia Britannica Cyprus
• 100 Interesting Cyprus Facts

Sadly none of the places in my quick search had any particularly good pictures, which is rather sad, as from what I remember from our study a few years ago Cyprus is rather a pretty location that should have some pretty pictures to go with it.

Here’s the Flag Friday video for Cyprus:

 And I was correct, he does have a Geography Go video.

Cyprus Unit Recipe:  Cyprus Almond Shortbread

Here’s the recipe I found. I modified it slightly because at the time I put together the recipe, I swore I had almond slivers, but apparently, that’s a lie.

I had no almond slivers.

Cyprus Almond Shortbread ingredients

• 3 cups butter (dear God, do I have that much butter in my house, searches frantically, and realizes I can cut the recipe in half) 1 1/2 cups butter
• starting with newly halved ingredient list: 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon brandy cooking sherry
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups slivered or chopped roasted almonds (yeah, I totally didn’t have that, so never mind)
• 3 cups flour

1. Look at the recipe and realize they switched from American units to Metric, so a quick search and 176 roughly converts to 350.
2. Mix the butter and powdered sugar together for 10 minutes until it turns a light yellow, I’m still not really sure what that color is.
3. Slowly add in the egg yolks, and then add in the brandy, I mean cooking sherry.
4. Add the vanilla to the mixture, and start adding in the flour. The recipe says to do this by hand somehow, I ignored that and added it in my mixer.
5. I chose to refrigerate it for an hour or so because rolling it out at this point was bad.
6. So, roll it out later on, and then bake it for about 20-25 minutes. I think I ended up cooking it for about 25 minutes.

Yield: 2 dozen cookies

Cyprus Almond Shortbread

Print

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Additional Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups butter
• 3/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 egg yolks
• 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon brandy or cooking wine
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups chopped almonds
• 3 cups flour

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix together the butter and powdered sugar for about 10 minutes.
3. Add in the egg yolks, and then the brandy. Once both of those have been added pour in the vanilla extract
4. Add the almonds now.
5. Slowly add the flour in, make sure it is slowly mixed in.
6. Refrigerate for 1 hour, and then roll it out cutting out the cookies and putting them on a baking sheet.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Cyprus notebooking pages

We’ve, and by we I really mean I, have been amused to find out the relative size of a country to Texas, so you can fit 73 Cyprus in Texas.

This is not in the least bit useful, but it makes me smile.

I will admit, when I created the resources page I was thinking they would write down and tell me natural resources, based off my schooling where resources always meant natural resources. Instead, they took it to mean all of the things a country is known for selling or has in abundance.

Cyprus has wine and tourism, so that’s what we wrote down. It does make sense when so many of these countries aren’t particularly known for their resources.

Well, that’s our Cyprus unit, nice and simple.

Now to get writing on the half dozen other simple units we’ve completed.

More learning fun

• Europe Unit Studies
• Why do people float in saltwater (Great Salt Lake)
• Paul’s First Missionary Journey
• Kansas Unit
• Rosemary Pork Chops of Yummyness