Portokalopita

A cake with no flour in it at all, built from filo dried out and torn into shreds, then soaked in orange syrup.

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

Ingredients

For the cake

• 400 g filo pastry
• 300 g Greek yoghurt
• 250 ml sunflower oil
• 200 g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• zest of 3 oranges
• 120 ml orange juice
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

For the syrup

• 400 g sugar
• 400 ml water
• juice of 1 orange
• 1 strip orange peel
• 1 cinnamon stick

Method

1. THERE IS NO FLOUR IN THIS CAKE. The filo IS the flour -- dried out hard, torn into small shreds and stirred into the batter as though it were a dry ingredient, where it swells and gives the whole thing its strange stringy, almost fibrous crumb. Anyone expecting a sponge will be surprised, and anyone substituting flour is making a different cake.
2. THE FILO MUST BE BONE DRY BEFORE IT IS TORN. Spread the sheets out loosely and leave them uncovered for two or three hours, or 10 minutes in a 150C oven. Fresh pliable filo tears into strips that clump into dough; dried, it snaps into small shreds that separate in the batter.
3. AND THE SYRUP IS COLD ONTO HOT, the same rule as every syrup-soaked thing here. Made first and left to go completely cold.
4. Syrup: sugar, water, orange juice, peel and cinnamon boiled 8 minutes, then cooled completely and the solids removed.
5. Filo sheets spread out and left to dry hard.
6. Torn by hand into shreds about the size of a thumbnail. Do not chop it -- a knife cuts it into neat squares that pack together, where torn edges tangle and hold the batter.
7. Eggs and sugar whisked 4 minutes until pale and thick.
8. Oil added in a slow stream, whisking, then the yoghurt, zest, orange juice and vanilla.
9. Baking powder whisked in last.
10. The torn filo added IN HANDFULS and folded through with a spatula, separating the shreds as they go in. It will look like far too much pastry and not nearly enough batter. That is right.
11. Into an oiled tin, spread level without pressing down.
12. Baked at 170C for 45 to 50 minutes until deep gold and firm to a press in the middle.
13. Straight out of the oven, the cold syrup ladled over slowly, a third at a time, letting each lot sink in.
14. Left 4 hours at least before cutting. It is better the next day and keeps four.

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