Greek Walnut Cake (Karydopita)

Karydopita is a traditional Greek Walnut Cake with syrup and spices. It's soft, moist, and loaded with ground walnuts.

It's one of the best coffee cakes since its warming earthy flavors (and its strong sweetness) make it the perfect match for both a strong coffee or tea.

But other than being the perfect coffee cake Karydopita or Karithopita (it's how it's pronounced Ka-ri-tho-pi-ta) is a dessert very popular around the holidays in Greece. Many people make this cozy Greek spice cake around Christmas or New Year's.

With a flavor very similar to Melomakarona (traditional Greek Christmas walnut cookies) and a texture similar to a moist Christmas pudding, it's indeed one of the best desserts to serve during that time of the year.

Ingredients

This walnut cake recipe is unique in a way that it's made with breadcrumbs instead of flour (hence why its texture is so similar to a pudding). I will explain this thoroughly in a bit, after telling you all of the ingredients.

The Ingredients

Karydopita is made with breadcrumbs, lots of ground walnuts, butter, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves, orange zest, cognac (brandy), and baking powder.

The Breadcrumbs: make the texture of the cake very airy, crumbly, and soft. Plus they add a deeper flavor than plain flour. Breadcrumbs in Greece are a bit different because they are made of toast rusks (melba toast). They're finer, less grainy, and powdered like whole wheat flour. You can make your own by pulsing toast rusks in a food processor or blender until powdered.

You can even make your own toast rusks at home. And let them airdry well before turning them into ground breadcrumbs.

The Ground Walnuts: The walnuts are ground in a food processor. Ground half the walnuts a bit more coarse than the others so they will retain a bite within the cake.

The Cognac (brandy): Is an essential ingredient of this cake as we add it both in the cake mixture and the syrup. It's what gives the distinctive flavor to this traditional walnut cake.

Ingredient Substitutes

All of the following ingredient substitutions will alter the flavor of the Karidopita making it taste different from the original. They all yield great results though.

You can swap walnuts with pecans as they are from the same tree family. Pecans will give an even stronger nutty flavor.

As for cognac, a few alternatives are dark rum, coffee, or almond liqueur.

Cooking Tip: Too sweet a cake for you? Add 2-3 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder to the cake batter and mix together with the dry ingredients.

In case you don't want to use alcohol you can use either espresso, filter coffee, or fresh orange juice. All of these can be added both in the cake batter and the syrup. Just like cognac is added to the original Karidopita recipe.

How To Make Karithopita Cake

Karithopita cake is made by beating with an electric mixer butter with sugar and orange zest until very creamy then mixing the egg yolks and cognac and keep beating until you get a very airy mixture.

Then beat egg whites separately with sugar until soft peaks form. And finally mix the dry ingredients (breadcrumbs, ground walnuts, baking powder, cinnamon, and cloves) into the egg yolk mixture in bits at a time. Alternately with the meringue.

Folding in both mixtures (dry ingredients + meringue) with a pastry spatula in order to preserve the air in the cake batter.

The Syrup

To make the syrup for Karydopita add sugar, water, a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, cognac, and cinnamon stick to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook for 6-7 minutes on medium-high (counting time from the moment it starts to boil). The syrup will thicken slightly.

Adding the syrup

To add the syrup the cake needs to be at room temperature and the syrup hot. So let the cake cool down before you begin making the syrup.

Ladle the hot syrup before its temperature drops over the cake. Wait a few seconds before adding the next spoonful of syrup so it won't sink straight to the bottom of the cake.

Toppings And Coatings

You can sprinkle this Greek walnut spice cake with some ground walnuts on top and keep it simple (like I did) or you can make things more interesting and add any of the following toppings:

• Coat it with Chocolate Ganache. Use dark chocolate like 70% cocoa for the perfect contrast to the sweetness of the syrup.
• Top it with this Espresso Buttercream Frosting.
• Try the cocoa glaze I use on this Sokolatina recipe
• Serve with a scoop of Vanilla or Kaimaki Ice Cream.

Pan Size And Portions

When we make desserts in Greece we have the tendency to cook for a crowd. Especially when we're talking oven-baked desserts that are soaked with syrup. Take for example Baklava, or Ekmek (you have to try this one).

So if you're looking for a dessert to serve to a crowd Karydopita recipe is a really good option. This recipe uses a 13 x 9-inch pan (33 x 23 cm) pan and yields 18 small square pieces. You can cut the pieces slightly bigger if you like. Keep in mind though that it's a pretty sweet and filling cake because of the amount of walnuts it contains.

If you want to cut the recipe in half use a square 8 x 8-inch (20 x 20 cm) pan.

Storing

This Greek walnut cake can be kept at room temperature for up to a week or up to 10 days in the fridge. The syrup preserves the cake and prevents it from spoiling.

It is better to keep it in the fridge though for one reason mainly, Karydopita tastes so much better when it's cold!

Recipe