Every year during New Year’s Eve, Greek housewives make the vasilopita. Vasilopita is a either a cake or a tsoureki and is a custom that comes from the very early Christian years.

Just after the coming of the New Year or the next day the Chief of the family cuts the vasilopita. The person, who makes this pie, puts a coin inside the pie and whoever wins the coin is the lucky person of the year.

Η συνταγή και στα ελληνικά στο τέλος της ανάρτησης!

Story says that when Saint Basil was the bishop in Cappadocia in Asia Minor, a Roman Prefect wanted to conquer the place. Saint Basil gathered all the wealth of the people lived in there, so as to give it as ransom to the Romans, in order not to loot the area. But either because the Prefect had second thoughts, or because of God’s intervention, the place stayed intact. Saint Basil of course didn’t know which item belonged to each person, so he ordered people to make pies and he put all the jewelry and valuable things inside them and distributed them among the community members.

Each year I try a new recipe and so far all my attempts were very successful. You can check my other vasilopitas here and here. This year I decided to make it as a tsoureki, which is a sweet bread similar to the Jewish challah. I took the recipe from the Crete’s Mills a company that makes flour.

I am showing you these photos of the vasilopita, but I have no idea how it tastes. I will let you know in my next post. All I can tell you is that, while it was baking, it smelled heavenly.

 

So let’s go and make this!

 

Vasilopita for 2013

Ingredients

550 gr. /1.2 lb. flour for bread, shifted. It may need 50 gr. /1.7 oz.  more depending on the weather

150 gr. /5 oz. sugar

15 gr. /2 tbsp dry yeast

100 gr. /3.5 oz. milk, scalded

3 eggs

6 tears of mastic, powdered

5 gr. /1 tsp mahlepi, powdered

1 tsp salt

1 egg whisked with a 2 tbsp of milk

White almonds for decorating it

 

Instructions

In a bowl we add the 50 gr. /1.7 oz. of sugar, the yeast, the scalded milk, and 2 tbsp of flour and let it rise for about 15 minutes.

In the mixer we put the rest of the ingredients except the whisked egg and the almonds.

Throw the risen yeast and start kneading with the mixer’s hook.

Slowly, slowly start adding the flour until we get a somewhat sticky dough.

Take it out of the mixer and knead it for a minute with your hands covered with oil.

Put it in a bowl and let it rise in a warm place for one and half hour.

Butter well a round pan.

Take the dough and knead for a minute.

Add a coin covered with aluminum foil and incorporate it in the dough.

Put the dough in the pan and stress it with your hands to cover the bottom of it.

Let it stay for 30 minutes.

Take the whisked egg and brush the vasilopita’s surface.

Take the almonds and form the number 2013.

Bake in a preheated oven at 170° C/345° F for 30 to 35 minutes or until the surface is golden brown.