Today I will post a recipe about a very traditional sweet savory cake that is made here in Cyprus during Easter. Flaounes, exist only in Cyprus. The main ingredient, the cheese is not easy to come across unless you are in Cyprus around Easter so I will provide alternatives. Cypriots consume a lot of flaounes during Easter, along with eggs and a soup made with eggs and lemon. And lamb. Lots and lots of lamb. The recipe has been in my family for 3 generations. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Let’s get going then.
You will need:
5 kg of flaouna cheese
1 and a half kg of village flour
1 and a half kg of all purpose flour
500 grams of spry butter
17 teaspoons of baking powder
2 tablespoons of vinegar
3 glass of sugar
1, 75 liters of warm milk
1 little jar of mastic droplets
1 little jar of mahlab
Raisins
1 and a half glasses of semolina
Eggs
A handful of fresh mint chopped
Salt
Sesame seeds
Let’s make it.
We grate the cheese and in a very large basin we mix it with 5 teaspoons of baking powder. We add eggs, one at a time, while keep kneading the mixture and we keep adding eggs until the cheese is moist but not runny or watery. We cover it with a blanket and we let it rest over night (about 6-7 hours) in a warm place in order to increase in volume.
The next day, we add 4 more teaspoons of baking powder, the mint, the semolina, 2 glasses of sugar, half of the mahlab, half of the mastic and raisins as much as you like. We mix it well and we set it aside.
For the dough, we put the flour in a large basin with the spry butter and we mix using our hands until the mixture resembles coarse crumbles. We add the vinegar, a dash of salt, the rest of the baking powder, the rest of the mastic and the rest of the mahlab and we mix thoroughly.
We add the milk, a glass at a time, and we knead until it yields soft dough that barely sticks to your finger tips, it is light and fluffy.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
We take handfuls of dough and we roll it out to round discs.
The dough needs to be thin enough to hold the stuffing but not fat because you will end up with a bready flaouna (and they resemble cheese bread as they are). Pat one side of the dough with sesame seeds and on the other side place a ball of cheese mixture in the center.
Fold the dough over so that you have three corners. Press each corner with a fork to stick it together, brush some egg on top of each and sprinkle with some more sesame seeds. Place them in a tray which is lined with alounminu foil and has flour at the bottom so that they don’t stick and keep them about 5-6 centimeters apart because they will rise.
Bake them until golden brown.
Let them rest for a couple of hours before cutting into them.
-You realize by reading this recipe that a lot of the ingredients are vague. The reason for this is because my mother and aunt have been making these forever now and they measure the ingredients with handfuls and using their cooking senses.
-Don’t add too many raisins in the dough. It will turn your flaounes black inside and they will taste funny.
-Fresh mint is very essential to this recipe. Dry mint is not the same. The cakes will lose their aroma and will end up blunt.
-Vinegar is responsible for making the dough fluffy.
-When the flaounes are ready in the baking tray, they have to be in the oven within 40 minutes or else they will be soggy and they will spread. Basically they will be ruined so you have to keep the pace and be quick. Usually it takes minimum 2 people to make this recipe.
-The recipe yields about 45 flaounes. So unless you are going to eat nothing but flaounes for 10 days in a row, I suggest you share with your family, friends and put some in the freezer after you have baked them. They can last up to 6 months. Also, you can half the recipe as well with no problems in the outcome whatsoever.
-They are best served hot, so every time you are about to enjoy a flaouna, reheating it is a bit essential.
-Since the cheese is a special kind of cheese that is called – very imaginative – flaouna cheese, it is very hard to come across it; you can use any of the following kind of cheeses: anari, mizithra or ricotta. If you use these kind of cheeses then you will inly need egg yolks. NOT EGG WHITES. The reason for this is because these cheeses are soft and they don’t need the egg white. Be warned that the original flaouna cheese is salty and there is, unfortunately, no substitution for it. The other kind of cheeses suggested here will yield sweet flaounes. Don’t worry though; my mother and aunt have been doing sweet flaounes with the savory ones for ages now. We use anari which is similar to the ricotta cheese. For these kinds of cheeses, the cheese needs no rest, so you have to prepare it the same day as the dough.
Until next time,
The digital cook.
The Digital Cook 