This is a lovely fragrant cake, typical of Greek cuisine, usually made in winter when orange groves are full of juicy, sweet oranges.
Greek orange semolina cake (portokalópita)
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Tag Archives: pudding
Frozen yoghurt with extra virgin olive oil and sea salt
Using olive oil in sweets, cakes and desserts has become very popular lately. Its presence adds a fruitier taste and gives a smoother texture to the dough- if we’re making one. It’s essential that we use olive oil of the best quality. By doing so we obtain unique taste and flavor.
Halvás
There are some basic differences between Roman Catholic Easter and Orthodox Easter, one of which is that we don’t always celebrate the same date. There are years when the dates coincide, and there are years when they are celebrated a week apart. Or even five weeks apart, like this year! Hence the fact that Catholics (and Protestants of course ) celebrated Easter on the 31st of March , whereas we Orthodox Christians are obliged to wait till the 5th of May – fair enough considering that hopefully the weather will be perfect! In the meantime, we’re in a 40-day period during which we fast. The fasting period began on the 18th of March (”Katharí Deftera” our Mardí Gras) and will end the midnight before Easter Sunday. Fasting the Orthodox way means no meat, no fish, no dairy, no eggs. That leaves us with a bunch of vegetables, legumes, fruit and some sea food to eat… But what about pastry? How do we cope with our need, our desire for something sweet, for a dessert? In today’s post we’ve got a typical example of a Greek dessert, totally suitable for the fasting period. It’s called ”halvás” and it’s sort of a semolina and olive oil pudding.
