Karydopita

A syrup cake built on walnuts and dry breadcrumbs instead of flour, which is what lets it take up syrup without collapsing.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (butter).

Ingredients

For the cake

• 300 g walnuts, ground to a coarse meal
• 200 g dry breadcrumbs
• 200 g caster sugar
• 180 g butter, softened
• 5 eggs, separated
• 60 ml brandy
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• zest of 1 orange

For the syrup

• 350 g sugar
• 400 ml water
• 1 strip lemon peel
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 cloves
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

1. BREADCRUMBS AND GROUND WALNUTS INSTEAD OF FLOUR, and the reason is structural rather than a flavour preference. A flour crumb goes to mush when it takes up this much syrup; dry breadcrumbs are already baked and simply swell, and ground walnut holds fat and liquid without any gluten to soften. The cake stays sliceable while completely saturated.
2. THE WALNUTS ARE COARSE, NOT FINE. Ground to a powder they release their oil and the cake turns greasy and heavy; a coarse meal with some pieces still visible keeps it open.
3. THE WHITES ARE WHIPPED AND FOLDED IN LAST, which is the only lift this has -- there is no flour structure to trap air, so the whites are doing all of it.
4. Syrup first: everything boiled 8 minutes, the lemon juice in at the end, then cooled completely and strained.
5. Walnuts pulsed to a coarse meal, not a powder.
6. Butter and sugar beaten 6 minutes until pale and light.
7. Yolks beaten in one at a time, then the brandy and zest.
8. Walnuts, breadcrumbs, baking powder and spices folded through. The mixture will be very stiff and will look wrong. It is.
9. Whites whipped to firm peaks in a clean bowl.
10. A third of the whites beaten in hard to slacken the mixture, then the rest FOLDED in gently in two lots. The first lot is sacrificed on purpose so the rest survive.
11. Into a lined tin and baked at 170C for 45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
12. COLD SYRUP OVER HOT CAKE, slowly, in three lots, letting each disappear before the next.
13. Left 6 hours before cutting. It keeps a week and improves for three days.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Greece · All recipes