Karidopita
A moist Greek walnut cake of eggs, spices and breadcrumbs, baked for 50 minutes and soaked in a cooled lemon syrup.
Photograph credit: Παραδοσιακό γλυκό με καρυδόψιχα (image of Karydopita on Wikidata Q25055866) by EFSTA · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Karidopita: Step by Step
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Heat the oven to 180°C / 355°F and line a 30 x 25 cm tin.
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Beat the yolks and 150 g sugar for 5 minutes. Fold in the walnuts, breadcrumbs, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves.
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Whisk the whites to stiff peaks and fold into the batter in two goes.
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Pour into the tin and bake for 50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
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Simmer the syrup sugar, water, peel and cinnamon stick for 8 minutes. Cool. Pour over the hot cake slowly, then cut into diamonds when cool.
Things to Watch For
- Fold in the whites gently.
- Pour cool syrup over the hot cake.
- Leave for a few hours so the syrup soaks in.
Good to Know About Karidopita
The first sign it is ready is the smell: cinnamon, cloves and toasted walnuts rising from the oven, then the hiss of syrup poured on a hot cake. Karidopita is a Greek walnut cake soaked in syrup, one of the most common of the syrup cakes, and it is made with ground walnuts, some breadcrumbs and no butter.
Beat the egg yolks with sugar until pale and thick. Fold in the ground walnuts, breadcrumbs, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks separately and fold them in, in two goes, since they raise the cake and keep it light. A heavy hand turns the cake into a brick.
Bake in a lined tin at 180°C / 355°F for 50 minutes, until deep gold and a skewer comes out clean. While it bakes, simmer sugar, water, a strip of lemon peel and a cinnamon stick for 8 minutes and cool. Pour the cool syrup over the hot cake, slowly, so that it soaks in. Leave it for a few hours, and cut into diamonds. It keeps for a week.
What to Serve It With
Greek coffee · Vanilla ice cream · Yoghurt
Keeping Karidopita
Keeps for 1 week in the fridge or a cool place.
The Numbers per Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked.
First published ; last changed .
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