Yiayia leads the way with this and usually has all the prep done the night before we bake. The family then comes together, three generations of us, the next morning after church to assemble these. We are an old fashioned production line. But nothing tastes better than these fresh out of the oven!
Flaounes
The Story
This is a traditional Easter bread
Flaounes
Pronounced FLAH-OO-NE, these are Cypriot cheese breads that are traditionally baked on the morning of Easter Saturday, after church, during Greek Orthodox Easter.
Ingredients
Bread
- 10 cup Plain flour
- 1 tbs Yeast (heaped)
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Sugar
- 2-3 cup Milk
- 500gm Mix of white and black sesame seeds
Filling
- 5 Whole haloumis
- 4 Whole Pafitiko cheese (Pafos is a region of Cyprus) Cheese found at specially Greek delis)
- 1 Whole Romano cheese
- 1 Block of cheddar
- 3 cup Self raising flour
- 5 tbs Yeast
- 42 Eggs (hold back 10 to12 yolks to use to brush on bread before baking)
- 1 or 2 Bunches Fresh mint
- 1 Bag of saltanas (optional, also debatable)
Instructions
- Start the process the night before assembling and baking. Mince the cheeses using a food processor.
- Once cheeses are minced and broken down, mix all the ingredients together, except the mint and saltanas.
- With the eggs, adjust the amount you add based on how soft the dough becomes. You want it to be soft and sticky but still quite firm as it needs to form the filling of the flaouna. Reserve 10 to 12 yolks to brush onto bread before baking.
- The morning of baking, we add the saltanas and mint to the filling mixture. Saltanas are a contentious issue and debated heavily. I personally hate them, but there is a market out there for them and they seem to be out in force at Easter time.
- To make the pastry/bread. Mix the ingredients together to form a dough and use your food processor with dough hook to form. Once the dry ingredients are added, add the milk last. The amount of milk needs to be adjusted to form a dough that springs back. Allow to rest overnight.
- On the day of baking, cut pieces of your dough at a time as this is a large amount. Roll into a long cylinder shape then cut into 2-3cm pieces.
- Roll each piece with a rolling pin into flat circles. And place one side into pile of sesame seeds so that the seeds stick to what will be the outside of the bread.
- Using a table spoon, spoon the mixture into the rolled out dough leaving about one cm around each side, keep them high though. Then fold the sides over to close the mixture in. Make sure you fold down firmly so they don't open while baking. Note: leave some of the mixture exposed at the top and brush with egg yolk before putting into oven.
- Bake for about 20min or until the top is golden.
- A side note: A lot of these measurements are just an average and you need to feel it to make it work. This is an old recipe that we follow with yiayia. She can't tell you exact measurements but has to show you how something is meant to feel and look to be right.
