Greek Orange Cake (portokalopita)

We have an iconic Greek dessert called Portokalopita. It is made with dried and crushed phyllo dough that you mix with a mixture of eggs, orange juice, yogurt and then you bake it in a pan and add syrup on top. Generally it is a dessert that you can find it easily in Greece but it is not so nice everywhere you have it.

It tends to be quite dense, with a heavy syrup, overly sweet and just a bit too much... So I decided to give it a bit of a make over making it lighter, not as sweet and still highly aromatic.

Also it takes very little time to make and bakes in only 20 minutes so it is quite easy even if guests just happen to arrive unexpected.. You just need to have 4-5 oranges at home.

One of the ingredients maybe it is not so easy to come by, but even in Greece you can now find it in almost any super market.. Whole wheat all purpose flour.

Anyway! I suggest that you give it a try!

Diffuculty: 1 of 3

Duration:30 min prep, 20 min baking

Serves:8-12

Ingredients

For the cake batter

90g whole wheat cake flour

40g of fine semolina

1,5 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

zest and juice of one orange

100γ of sugar

120g of cow milk butter in room temperature

2 large eggs in room temperature

For the topping and syrup

250g of sugar

250g of water

4-5 medium sized oranges

1 small cinnamon stick

1 knob of Ginger

1 knob of fresh tumeric (1/2 level tsp dried grinded)

Method

For the batter

Preheat the oven at 170 celsius fan forced. Butter and flour a round 20 cm cake tin and leave it aside. For better results cover the bottom of the pan with a parchment paper.

In a bowl add the flour, semolina, baking powder and salt and mix them together.

In the bowl of a stand mixer add the zest and sugar and start mixing them in low speed. As I have said in the past this is the best way to make sure the aroma from the fruit will be transferred all over the cake.

Add the butter and mix for 3 minutes. Add the egs one by one making sure you mix well before the next addition. If you have small eggs add 3.

The mixture may look weird and split and well, wait till you add the juice. It will get worse. But as soon as you add the dry ingredients things will get back to normal.

Transfer the mixture in the pan and bake for 20 minutes checking with a cake tester if it is baked through.

For the syrup and oranges:

We add the sugar and water in a large pot. We wait for it to boil and sugar to melt. Turn it off till we prepare the orange slices.

Cut the top and bottom of the oranges and remove the peel with a sharp knife trying to make pentagon or a hexagon.

Slice each orange in 4.

While you are doing that bring the syrup to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes.

Add the slices in the syrup and simmer for 3 more..

Leave the oranges in there and remove from heat.

For the cake

The cake should be ready by now. Remove it from the oven and turn it out of the pan onto a rack and then turn it over onto the serving platter.

Soak the cake with half of the syrup using a spoon and decorate with the oranges trying to cover the whole surface..

Next time I will add some more oranges with the syrup to serve them extra with the cake!

Serve the cake when it has cooled down...