Cake for the New Year (Traditional)

From this recipe you can also make very nice koulouria rings.

15 cups flour

3 cups of butter or veg. Fat

3.1/2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 level teaspoon Mechlepi pounded in mortar(a spice resembling the insidde of a cherry stone) 5-6 cloves, finely ground

A little less than a teaspoonful of Masticha - resin - which you pound in a mortar with a little sugar so that it does not stick

3 tablespoons baking powder

1.1/4 glasses water with another teaspoonful of baking powder dissolved in 1/4 kg blanched sesame (which you can get from the grocer or bakers of koulouria)

Beat butter and sugar well. Sift together the flour and baking powder and add the spices. Gradually mix into the creamed butter and sugar. Add the water with baking powder solution, to form a stiff dough.

Form the mixture into a round loaf and cover it with the blanched sesame (which you bring to the boil in water before using). Place in a buttered baking dish and bake in a slow oven for about 2 hours.

Wash a silver coin well with salt and lemon and stick this into the loaf either before or after baking.

You may, of course, form a number of small loaves or rounds instead of making a big one , or make variously formed figures, (animals, birds, S, rounds, etc).

  

 

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