Happy NEW Year!

Let us get ready for the last church service of this 2014 year and welcome properly in church the NEW YEAR 2015 with prayers, psalms and incense!

“…And the smoke of the incense…ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.” (Rev 8:4)

 

On January 1^st The Orthodox Church celebrates St Basil and in his honor we prepare a wonderful sweet bread, called Vasilopita!

 The Story of Vasilopita

One of the more beautiful and inspirational traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church is the annual family celebration of the Vasilopita. This original event which happened in Cappadocia of Caesarea in the last half of the fourth century, is very much alive in our Orthodox homes each year.

http://vasilopita.com/story.html

  Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

2 ½ cups sugar

7 eggs, separated

1 teaspoon almond extract

3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup milk

1 cup almonds, crushed

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon orange zest

1 bag of whole blanched almonds

Directions:

• Cream butter and sugar for 10 minutes, add egg yolks and flavorings.
• Add remaining ingredients, except egg whites.
• Beat egg whites until stiff in a separate bowl.
• Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Blend well.
• Grease baking pan (round 14” pan).
• Pour in batter and tuck coin (thinly wrapped in Aluminum Foil) into batter, then hand lay whole blanched almonds around perimeter of surface.
  (You can also spell out the current year in the middle of cake)
• Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Note: For a smaller cake, prepare half of recipe, and bake in a 10” round greased baking
pan for about 30 minutes.

For a gluten-free recipe: replace wheat flour with 2 cups of quinoa flour + 1 cup of corn flour.

Gluten-free Vasilopita