serves
8-12
prep
5 minutes
cook
1:30 hour
difficulty
Easy
serves
8-12
people
preparation
5
minutes
cooking
1:30
hour
difficulty
Easy
level
Ingredients
- 500 g filo pastry
- 1 orange
- 180 g caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 200 g full-fat Greek yoghurt, plus extra to serve
- 150 ml light-flavoured extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing
- 2 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
- ½ tsp baking powder
- pinch of ground cinnamon
Orange syrup
- 1 orange, juice only
- 2 strips of orange peel
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 cloves
Resting time: 1.5 hours or overnight
Instructions
- Using your hands, tear the filo pastry into small pieces. Lay them out on a tray and allow them to dry out for at least 1½ hours, but overnight is great, too.
- Place the orange in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook for 35–40 minutes or until the orange is soft. Allow to cool, then halve it, remove any seeds and roughly chop. Place the chopped orange in a food processor or blender, add the caster sugar, eggs, yoghurt, olive oil, vanilla, baking powder and cinnamon and blitz until smooth.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C fan-forced. Grease a 24 cm square cake tin with a little olive oil.
- Place the dried filo pastry in the tin and pour on the orange mixture. Mix well with a fork, coating all the pastry without pressing down too much. Bake for 35–40 minutes or until the portokalopita is lightly risen and golden.
- While the portokalopita is cooking, combine the orange syrup ingredients with 200 ml of water in a saucepan over high heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar, then bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 6–8 minutes or until syrupy. Allow to cool.
- When the hot portokalopita comes out of the oven, pour over the cooled syrup, including the cinnamon stick and cloves. Allow to cool in the tin. Serve the portokalopita with the extra yoghurt.
Good Cooking Every Day by Julia Busuttil Nishimura (Plum, RRP $44.99)
Photography by Armelle Habib.
Cook's Notes
Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.
