Anevata kalitsounia are a traditional Cretan sweet that dominates every Cretan household at Easter. The Easter Cretan table is accompanied, apart from the lamb and the red eggs, by the delicious and fragrant anevata kalitsounia. Their main ingredient is sweet mizithra. A dessert that originates from earlier generations of housewives, back when every home had its own goat or sheep, and the milk they produced was curdled to make their own mizithra. With that mizithra they made fragrant kalitsounia, ready to grace the Easter table.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 1 glass of olive oil or 300 g fresh butter

• 2 glasses of sugar

• 2 glasses of milk

• 4 eggs

• 100 grams of fresh yeast

• 2 packets of dry yeast

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 2 vanillas

• 1 teaspoon mahlepi

• ½ teaspoon mastiha

• 1 baking powder

• 1 packet of flour

Ingredients for the filling:

• 1 mizithra, about 1,700 g

• 1 wine glass of sugar

• 2 small eggs

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• Lemon zest

Procedure:
In a large bowl, put one glass of lukewarm milk and dissolve the yeast. Then gradually add the flour, stirring until it becomes a thick batter. Cover it and let it rise well, for about 20–30 minutes.

Add to the bowl the olive oil, sugar, mahlepi, vanilla, mastiha, cinnamon, and lemon zest, and beat them. Then, add the eggs, after beating them in a separate bowl. Mix everything with the risen starter. Knead all together, slowly adding the remaining flour. Then, let the new dough rise again, until it doubles in volume.

In another bowl, knead the mizithra by hand, add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

When the dough has doubled in size, start making the kalitsounia.
Cut a piece of dough at a time and roll out sheets about one centimetre thick. Cut each sheet with a teacup plate, creating small round discs, where you place one teaspoon of mizithra on each. Then close them into a triangle or square shape and place them on a large table, covered with a sheet, and cover them again with a sheet and blankets so they can rise, until they double (the sheet is essential so the kalitsounia don’t stick).

Once the kalitsounia have risen, place them in a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Brush the tops with egg, sprinkle with a little white sesame.

Bake in a preheated oven, on top and bottom heat, at 170°C for 20–25 minutes, on the second rack from the bottom, so the bottom is well baked and the top turns golden.

When out of the oven, sprinkle with cinnamon and place lemon leaves on top.

Lena Igoumenaki

President of the Cretan Cuisine Festival Association