Greek Vasilopita - New Year's Bread

Vasilopita is a sweet bread very soft airy and fluffy. A delicious yeast bread made with butter and flavored with orange, vanilla, Mastiha, and Mahlep. Inside it contains a hidden coin and whoever finds it is to have good luck for the whole year!

This type of bread in Greece we call it Tsoureki. There's also a braided Tsoureki bread that we make for Easter. This is a recipe for Vasilopita Tsoureki, a sweet bread baked in a round cake tin. There's also a Vasilopita Cake Recipe.

Table Of Contents

• What Is Vasilopita?
• How To Cut Vasilopita
• Vasilopita Ingredients
• Storing
• Recipe

What Is Vasilopita?

Greek Vasilopita is St Basil's bread. Saint Basil in Greek is called Agios Vasilios and pita means pie. Therefore, Vasilo-pita translates to Saint Basil's pie.

Traditionally made to celebrate his name day on the 1st of January hence why it's also called New Year bread. However, people in Greece cut a Vasilopita until mid-January.

Vasilopita is supposed to bring good luck for the New Year. Especially to the person who finds the coin that's hidden inside!

Greeks cut a Vasilopita at home but also in public places like school, work, etc.

How To Cut Vasilopita

When cutting a Vasilopita you point whose each piece you cut is.

To begin with, cut one piece for God, one for Saint Mary, one for Jesus, one for the Holy Spirit, one for the house, for the fields/land (in past years), and one for every member of the family starting with the older one.

You serve each person his piece right as you cut so they won't get mixed up. And now it's where the fan part begins when everyone starts to examine and search his piece for the hidden coin.

Vasilopita Ingredients

To make Greek Vasilopita bread you need the following:

• Bread flour
• Butter
• Milk
• Sugar
• Eggs
• Dry yeast
• Orange zest
• Vanilla extract
• Mastiha powder or Mastic tears
• Mahlep powder or you can use ground Cardamom or ground Anise instead.

To Decorate The Top:

Decorating a Vasilopita is a way of showing that it's a special occasion bread or cake. In the cake version, more fancy decorations are used than the Tsoureki bread version which is always more minimal.

The classic way of decorating the top of a Vasilopita bread is with sesame seeds. I also add a thin butter glaze with sugar and honey for extra sweetness. Some people arrange almonds to form the New Year number on the surface of the cake before baking.

Dusting icing sugar on top is also a classic way of decorating a Vasilopita. You can place paper numbers on the top of the cake, dust the top with icing sugar, and then remove the paper numbers to form the year number on the cake.

How To Make Vasilopita

To make Vasilopita bread you ideally need to use your electric mixer with the hook attached on. You can make the dough also kneading it by hand. If you don't mind the effort.

First, you need to heat the milk with butter, sugar, orange zest, vanilla extract, Mastiha, and Mahlep. And then allow it to cool down to lukewarm. In a bowl dissolve the yeast with lukewarm water. Then add both mixtures and the eggs and start mixing, adding the flour in gradually.

Knead the dough until it gets stretchy, soft, and elastic. This took me 15 minutes using a hand mixer. So it will take a little bit less if using a high-speed stand mixer and longer if you knead by hand.

Let the dough double in size inside a warm oven. Then press it down and let it double (almost triple) in size again. Brush the surface with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds. And finally, bake it until caramel brown on top.

Placing The Coin

Add the coin to the Vasilopita before baking. Do this by pressing it in from underneath the dough, right before you add the dough to the cake tin for the second and final rise.

Storing

Keep Vasilopita at room temperature in an airtight food container for up to 5 days.

Recipe