A tribe of tsourekia

It's been a big week of Easter rituals, including making tsourekia as flagged in the last post. 

We started early, loading up our basket of goodies and taking it all to my mother's house.  We used yiayia (grandma) Frosso's divine recipe, which was given to her by her Greek elderly neighbour many years ago. Her neighbour showed her how to make tsourekia one Easter, and every Easter after that, they would make them in their respective homes and gift one to each other over the fence.

Her neighbour has since died, but yiayia Frosso continues the tradition by giving a tsoureki to her neighbour’s widower husband. Though she now has arthritis in her hands, she continues to bake these delicacies. She says “nothing will stop me from making tsourekia!”

And so, in my mother's garden, and bungalow, and kitchen, we continued the tradition...

 
Dolores crushes the mahlepi...

 
I tell Dolores it's all in the kneading...

And then my mother shows us how it's really done...

 
More kneading the second time around...

Basking in the afternoon sun...

 
A slightly overcooked tribe of tsourekia comes out of the oven...

Continue the tradtion yourself -  Download Yiayia Frosso's Tsoureki recipe.

Comments

[Tina Taz]

Love eating yiayia's tsourekia!!!

From the daughter of the famous yiayia Frosso.

[Maria]

URGENT YIAYIA FROSSO!!
I am going to make your divine recipe for tsourekia tomorrow (April 17 2014) and I need to know how many grams of butter...when you say one packet do you mean the 250g packet?

Efharisto poli yiayia!

[spiri]

Yes, yes, yes Maria, one packet equals 250gms! This is the most divine recipe - good luck with it and let us know how you go! Spiri

[Maria]

Dear Spiri,

Oh.My. Lord. I baked these yesterday and they look absolutely gorgeous! I gave each of my kids a bit of dough so they could make their own little tsoureki, they had fun! This morning we tasted the children's tsoureki and they taste AMAZING! It's the best flavour of tsoureki I have ever eaten, the texture is beautiful too! Will post a pic on your FB page, this is the recipe I will be using from now on thanks to Yiayia Frosso!