New Year's Cake: The recipe

Greeks make a special cake, called vasilopita, to welcome the New Year and hide a coin (flouri) in it. Whoever finds the coin in his/her piece will have good luck for the rest of the year. Angela Nicolettou has a tasty recipe for vasilopita.

In Greece, families bake a special New Year’s Day Cake (vasilopita) and place a coin (flouri) inside it (source: Getty Images) Source: Getty Images

New Year’s cake – Vasilopita

Ingredients

4 cups self-raising flour

1 ½ cups caster sugar

250 g unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ cups milk

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla paste

Lemon zest

Icing sugar to dust

Coin, washed and covered in foil (if using)

Method

Heat oven to 180C. Grease a 25cm cake tin.

Using a blended, beat soft butter, sugar and vanilla paste until fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time and beat into the butter mixture well before adding the next one.

Add the lemon zest.

Fold through the flour and milk, alternating in small amounts until it is all incorporated.

Place mixture in baking tin and add the coin.

Bake for about 1 hour until cooked. Cool and dust with icing sugar.

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