Preparation: 15-20 minutes
Cooking: 50-55 minutes
Portions: 12
Difficulty: medium
Price: 8 Euros
Vasilopita is the traditional Greek cake or bread served at midnight on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the life of Saint Basil. After baking the Vasilopita cake, a coin is inserted through the base. When cut, the person who finds the coin is said to be granted luck for the rest of the year!
Vasilopita can be made of a variety of doughs, depending on the region, with almost every family having their own unique recipe. There are two main variations of Vasilopita – the cake version, which is this recipe here and the tsoureki vasilopita version, which is the same as an easter Tsoureki and my Tsoureki in a bread machine but rather shaped in a tin!
Every year, my grandmother Polly, made this Vasilopita cake for New year’s. It took several years before I realized that it was her basic classic cake recipe that she always did except that she doubled it and made it in a round tin pan. Despite all this, this buttery version for Vasilopita is a safe choice to make and can be kept for days after being cut. It was interesting that we sat down together and opened her old notebooks to find the recipe written in drams and faded by time. We wrote it down and I took it upon myself to make the New Year’s pie this year.
INGREDIENTS
2 VITAM/butter sticks (250 gr each)
2 cups / 500 gr of granulated sugar
2 cups / 500 gr of all purpose flour
8 eggs
4 tsp of baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 vanilla pod
A shot of cognac
For serving: sprinkle powdered sugar and you can add a spoon of pistachio butter cream for extran flavor
PREPARATION
In the bowl of the mixer, beat and soften the butters at room temperature. Add the sugar and incorporate with the butter until it turns fluffy for about 10 minutes at high speed. Alternatively you can use a hand mixer.
Slowly add the eggs until they are homogenized and then the vanilla, the cognac and the salt and keep mixing.
Add the flour little by little along with the baking powder and mix slowly to mix well.
Butter well and cover in flour a 36 cm round pan and pour the mixture and tap it on the counter to remove the entrapped air.
Bake in a preheated oven at 170 °C for 50-55 minutes on the middle rack, until the knife comes out clean and the surface of the pie is golden.
Let it cool very well and then take the pie out on a platter, add the coin and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
