Category: Breads and baked goods

Delicious breads and other savoury baked goods.

What to do with leftover tsoureki

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What to do with left over Greek Easter bread, tsoureki! It can be used in some creative and delicious ways

There are a few things about Orthodox Easter and Greek families that are pretty standard fare. Daily church services (sometimes more than one a day), beautiful red dyed Easter eggs, and other creative designs, and lamb to help break the fast of Great Lent. Holy Thursday for us is usually the day when we try to finish up all of our last minute baking – Pascha is not Pascha without koulourakia, amygdalota and galatopita. It’s also not Pascha without the sweet smell of tsourekia baking. In this post you will discover what to do with your leftover tsoureki.

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Best bread recipes

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A compilation of some of our easiest and best bread recipes

From quick breads to no-knead breads, to savoury loafs to sweet breads, we’ve gathered some of our most popular and best-loved bread recipes here in one place. We hope that these recipes will inspire you to give bread baking a try, even if you are a little intimidated. These are straightforward and simple recipes that we know you’ll turn to again, and again.

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Pressed sandwich

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A delicious pressed sandwich full of meat, cheese, and marinated vegetables.

A delicious pressed sandwich full of meat, cheese, and marinated vegetables

Our mother has a complicated relationship with sandwiches. She made sure we always had some mortadella in the house. This is our dad’s favourite deli meat and he would often take a mortadella sandwich with him to work. On days of family outings, our mother would pack sandwiches filled with feta cheese and sliced tomatoes. A day of horta-picking would include a picnic lunch of sandwiches to make sure we had the energy to keep pulling weeds. Our mother appreciates the ease and versatility of sandwiches.

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Lemon ricotta cake

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Easy lemon ricotta cake that is full of citrus flavour and with a great texture.

Easy lemon ricotta cake that is full of citrus flavour and with a great texture.

We never pretend to be something that we’re not. Same goes for our recipes. The BEST baklava? No, probably not the best in the world, but the best we’ve ever had. The EASIEST banana bread? Easy is relative, so who are we to say (although it has been successfully made by a second grader). It was not entirely comfortable for us then, to hear that our lemon ricotta cake was being compared to the Starbucks lemon loaf, and that our dessert rivaled, and in some opinions, surpassed it. Did we set out with this goal in mind? Were we intent on creating yet another copycat recipe? Not at all. Are we happy with the result? You bet we are! We bet you will be too.

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Healthy banana bread with dates

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A healthy and vegan banana bread made with dates and sweetened with molasses

A healthy and vegan banana bread made with dates and sweetened with molasses

This healthy banana bread sweetened with molasses and dates is guaranteed to become your new go-to banana bread. It is so full of goodness that you will likely jump to correct anyone who wants to call it a cake. Made with a combination of regular all-purpose flour and whole-wheat flour, sweetened with a bit of molasses and studded with beautiful Medjool dates, this healthy banana bread is perfect for breakfast, as a mid-morning snack, and it is the perfect bit of sweetness to accompany your late evening cup of chamomile tea.

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Easy pumpkin bread

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Our easy pumpkin bread is the ONLY recipe you will ever need!

Our easy pumpkin bread is the ONLY recipe you will ever need!

This easy pumpkin bread is one of those recipes that falls under the category of Our Kouppes, recipes that we (Helen & Billie) have either developed, tweaked or perfected over the years. In other words, our parents have never made pumpkin bread and we’re pretty sure they would be shocked to learn that you can buy pumpkin puree in a can. Any pumpkin they use in recipes is grown by them, grated by them, and turned into lovely Greek recipes like pumpkin pita, and an assortment of squash or pumpkin fritters, like these with cheese, and these without.

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Chocolate chip banana bread

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The best chocolate chip banana bread, super moist and easy

The best chocolate chip banana bread, super moist and easy

Everyone needs an amazing banana bread recipe in their repertoire of recipes! We have already posted one of our favourites, a vegan banana bread that is simple, super moist and perfect for anyone following a plant-based diet. And now, we’re so happy to share with you what we consider to be the best chocolate chip banana bread. It is so moist, and so easy that you will probably start making it as often as we do…which lately has been at least once a week.

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Phanouropita

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Phanouropita (or fanouropita) is a symbolic and traditional Greek vegan cake full of meaning.

Phanouropita (or fanouropita) is a symbolic and traditional Greek vegan cake full of meaning.


On August 27 the Orthodox Church celebrates the Feast Day of Saint Phanourios (pronounced “fan-OO-ree-os”) (or Saint Fanourios), the Martyr and Miracle Worker. The saint’s name sounds similar to the Greek verb “phanerono,” which means “to reveal” or “to disclose”. In fact, people pray to Saint Phanourios to help them find lost objects, to reveal lost or hidden spiritual matters of the heart, to redirect them or reveal actions which should be taken, and to restore health. When a lost object is discovered, or when prayers reveal what is needed, a symbolic cake called a phanouropita is baked and brought to the church where it is blessed by the priest and then distributed among the parishioners.

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Cherry and coconut brown butter tart

~ miakouppa ~ 4 Comments
A cherry and coconut brown butter tart with a chocolate crust - pure decadence!

A cherry and coconut brown butter tart with a chocolate crust – pure decadence!

Are cherries expensive where you live? Here in our part of Canada the availability of delicious cherries is limited to a few months during the summer, and they tend to be costly. Of course, they also happen to be some of our favourite fruits, and for about a year it was the only fruit one of our daughters would eat. Like literally…the ONLY fruit.

So, when cherries are everywhere, or on sale, we like to stock up. They keep pretty well for simple snacking, but even when they are a few days past their prime we don’t let even one go to waste. Baking with cherries, making our cherry and chocolate chunk no churn ice cream, or canning the classic Greek spoon sweet with cherries, are all great ways to use up cherries that are still great, but perhaps not perfect.

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Zucchini and cheddar muffins

~ miakouppa ~ 4 Comments
Savoury zucchini and cheddar muffins made with summer squash, aged cheddar and fresh herbs

Savoury zucchini and cheddar muffins made with summer squash, aged cheddar and fresh herbs

Most gardeners will tell you that growing zucchini is an essential part of a well-rounded garden. Actually, we don’t know if most gardeners will tell you that, but our dad would. When one of us decided to start a little vegetable patch in our own back yard we were excited to share our plans with our Baba. Xeno husband was proud to announce that we would be planting tomatoes and jalapeno peppers and kohlrabi. Our dad was impressed, to an extent. He wondered what kind of ψευτοκεφτέδες or fake keftedes you could make with kohlrabi, and whether or not jalapenos would lend themselves to being stuffed for yemista. He then asked which section of the garden we would reserve for the zucchini.

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