The Sweet Side Of Greece: 7 Greek Desserts Not To Be Missed

Greece is a country full of discovery: sea, sun, breathtaking landscapes, history, culture and what else? The good food!

In this article we want to put aside for a moment the mouth-watering Greek salads, endless souvlaki and delicious pita gyros. Today we will focus on an underrated niche: pastry.

Greek pastry represents what is most characteristic of Mediterranean culture. In ancient Greece, Zeus, Artemis and Apollo were the greedy recipients of irresistible sweet creations, rich in spicy aromas, dried fruits, cottage cheese and mosto. Greek sweets, besides being tasty, often keep for a long time and are a wonderful accompaniment to Greek coffee.

Galaktoboureko this is simply a phyllo pastry cake filled with butter, semolina, sugar, cornflour, eggs, milk, vanilla and nutmeg, baked in the oven and then, once cold and cut into squares, drizzled with a delicious syrup made from honey, lemon or orange peel.

 

Kourabiedes: these are classic winter biscuits, made mainly of almonds and butter, covered with icing sugar, resembling winter snow. A delicate biscuit with a unique aroma, scented with brandy or ouzo that decorates the tables of the Greek people at Christmas time.

 

Trigona panoramatos: a regional speciality, originating in Thessaloniki (said to be the gastronomic capital of Greece) specifically in the Panoramatos district, whose name in Greek recalls its curious shape (trigona = triangle). These are triangles of phyllo dough soaked in sugar syrup and filled with a rich cream-based custard.

 

Loukoumades: these are delicious round doughnuts cooked in boiling oil, covered with honey, cinnamon and chopped walnuts (or almonds). On St Andrew’s Day it is the custom for Greek women to prepare them and offer them in church: legend has it that the saint’s wife offered them to Jesus and his disciples on the day they arrived in the village hungry.

 

Portokalopita: an irresistible orange-scented phyllo dough cake. The intense and strong aroma of the fruit lends itself perfectly to the taste of Greek yoghurt, which gives the dessert a soft and firm texture. After baking, a glaze of sugar, orange juice and cinnamon completes this rich and unique dessert.

 

Greek Baklava: a syrupy dessert of Turkish origin, also found in Hellenic pastries. A cake made with layers of phyllo dough alternating with chopped almonds and honey, whose original recipe calls for the phyllo dough to be baked with dried fruit and then syrupy with honey. The ingredients? Butter, sugar and dried fruit, all flavoured with cinnamon, cloves and orange, honey: one bite leads to another.

 

Kataifi: a neat composition of strands of phyllo dough with bits of dried fruit inside, including nuts, pistachios and almonds.