Greek New Year’s Day bread is customary. served for breakfast as a coffee cake. Additionally, the recipient of the quarter within has good fortune for a full year!
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 30 mins |
| Servings: | 12 |
| Yield: | 1 to 10 – inch round pan |
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter
- 2 cups white sugar
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 6 eggs
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- ¼ cup blanched slivered almonds
- 2 tablespoons white sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Generously grease a 10 inch round cake pan.
- In a medium bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light. Stir in the flour and mix until the mixture is mealy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Combine the baking powder and milk, add to the egg mixture, mix well. Then combine the lemon juice and baking soda, stir into the batter. Pour into the prepared cake pan.
- Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove and sprinkle the nuts and sugar over the cake, then return it to the oven for 20 to 30 additional minutes, until cake springs back to the touch. Gently cut a small hole in the cake and place a quarter in the hole. Try to cover the hole with sugar. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes before inverting onto a plate.
- Serve cake warm. Each person in the family gets a slice starting with the youngest. The person who gets the quarter in their piece, gets good luck for the whole year!
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 447 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 61 g |
| Cholesterol | 135 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 8 g |
| Saturated Fat | 11 g |
| Sodium | 287 mg |
| Sugars | 37 g |
| Fat | 20 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I added the zest of 2 lemons and 1 tsp of lemon extract. It was a hit at my New Year brunch!
Absolutely perfect! Super fluffy & delish!
It was delicious.
This is so annoying! I spent all this time and effort to end up with a soggy mess. I wanted a nice cake for my family for New Year’s day, so I followed the directions to a tee and now it is a soggy buttery mess! All those ingredients wasted! And nothing to show for it. DON’T BOTHER WITH THIS MESS!
I had to host a New Years party at my sisters house. I had to come up with idea for the icing . Used carnal Apple topping on the cake. They boys were allergic to nuts. So I thought outside the bag. I took some Oreo cookies and grounded them up in the food blender. When they were done. I used them as a topping for this cake. They wanted a toy baby didn’t have one. So I used a Macintosh cherry and baked i it into the cake. It was extremely yummy and a big hit at the party. Whoever found the cherry won the cool prize.
It was really good! I made it in a Bundt pan. I did need to bake it longer, about 15 minutes. But I didn’t think it was dry, and it was plenty sweet.
Delicious! A new tradition is born for my family! (I hid a whole almond instead of a coin) Thank you for this lovely recipe.
I made this in a large round stoneware baker which was a perfect size, but I needed to give it some extra baking time, which made it a tad dry. It makes quite a large cake, great for breakfast with jam and coffee. I agree with another reviewer that it was moister the second and third days. I would make it ahead.
I made this to bring in the new year! I did make a substitute as I didn’t have lemon juice. I added 1 teaspoon of almond extract and topped with powdered sugar. Does need to be naked longer as suggested by others. Delicious!
Eating a second piece of this cake as I type and WOW is it delicious! My Yaya used to make the New Year’s cake for us, so I decided to give it a go. I remembered the cake as being kind of dry and tasteless, so I didn’t expect much from this cake, but how wrong I was. This cake is like a pound cake – moist and soooo good. The only change I made was to exchange finely chopped pecans for the almonds because I didn’t have almonds. This is a FABULOUS recipe – a keeper that will go into my little book of recipes that I love. Happy New Year 2019!!
This recipe is absolutely delicious! I made it as written except added a powdered sugar glaze for the sweet tooth in the family. I will make this a yearly tradition. Thank you!
Moist dense and delicious. Added orange zest and vanilla. No nuts. Cooking time as directed. It’s a keeper. Can’t have only 1 slice. Thank you!I tried to add a photho but can’t.
Its perfect! The only thing I did differently was that I switched the lemon juice with limoncello liqueur. And made a glaze with powdered sugar and the liqueur.
Very nice! I was trying to make a traditional Spanish “bizcocho” and this recipe reminded me of my mother-in-laws. I like that it’s light and not super sweet. Next time I will definitely try it with the slivered almonds. Perfect to enjoy with coffee and family! 🙂
Made it for party at work. Everybody loved it. I did not sprinkle with sugar instead I used powder sugar over a snowflake paper cutout after it had cool down. Beutyful!!
This was an impressively easy and delicious cake. I liked that it wasn’t u we sweet and that it baked up so nicely. I followed directions almost to the letter, using cashew milk instead of regular and crushing cinnamon toasted almonds instead of blanched and sliced. I also didn’t have a sanitized quarter and was worried about kids not paying attention so I used a few raisins instead. It was great! The whole family enjoyed this cake and only the sweetest of sweet tooth’s didn’t eat it all. I had to extend the baking time by 20minutes but should have done 15 as the edges were a bit drier than the rest. Delicious though and something I’ll continue making..very tasty and fun for the new year :).
I made this today for a “good luck” new years brunch. It was a hit- extremely moist and delicious! I baked it in a 9″ spring form pan- it needed some extra baking time.
Happy 2018!!! This was the best recipe! Everyone loved it!!!! xronia pola!
I love this cake and it’s fun to make! I’ve made it three times and it turned out great every time. I did add 1/2 teaspoon almond extract even though I like it without also, used a springform pan as it rises that high, I put it on a cookie sheet as it did leak just a tad, baked it 65minutes.
It didn’t turn out like the picture…it’s more yellow because it contains 6 eggs. There was WAY too much batter for one pan and it ended up spilling over into my oven. lol All in all though, nice tasting coffee cake.
This was amazing! My Greek father said it was one of the best he’d ever eaten! I wrapped the coin in foil and it made for a fun game. I needed to cook it for a total of 60 minutes.