Vasilopita Recipe

"Skip the store-bought cakes that taste like moth balls."

Prep time: 30 minutes
Total time: 1 hour

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups unsalted butter
3 cups granulated sugar
6 large eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3/4 tablespoon cream of tartar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup Cognac
1 orange, zest only

Directions

1. First, beat the butter until it's a smooth, paste-like consistency, and then tip in the sugar and combine well. Make sure you do this in a really big bowl, as everything ends up back in this bowl and the quantities are pretty massive.

2. Divide the eggs. Set aside the whites in one bowl, and add the yolks to the butter-sugar mix one by one. Then pour in half the milk, and mix in all the flour and vanilla essence.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks – this sounds like a lot of work but should only take a few minutes by hand.

4. Continue stirring the butter-sugar mix and add the remaining milk, and then add the cream of tartar and the beaten egg whites.

5. Add the baking soda with Cognac and zest. This will look (and smell) like a truly enormous amount of Cognac, but don't worry—it all cooks off.

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for about 1 hour at 200° C (400º F), depending on your oven. If possible, put the 180° C (350º F) and leave for a while more. Because every oven is different, it'll need a fairly elastic amount of baking time. I have a terrible gas oven and it took about 1hour 45 minutes at gas mark 3.

7. To make sure it's done, test your cake by pushing a knife into the top. Your vasilopita is cooked when it comes out clean.

8. Then, once it's cooled, wrap a regular coin in tin foil, or buy a special one if you're feeling really flashy. Make an incision in the underside of the bread, then push the coin inside, remembering roughly where it is so you can make sure children or particularly difficult relatives get a slice. I swear I remember one year when me and my two brothers all got a coin in the same cake, totally by coincidence.

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