The annual Greek Bake Sale returns on Friday, Nov. 12, so now's the time to get your orders in before all those amazingly scrumptious sweet and savory confections - baklava, spanakopita and other Greek treats - are gone.
This year's sale will be much like last year's. With COVID-19 still around, orders will be picked up outside Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, located across from Memorial Hospital at 722 Glenwood Ave. Just drive up to the hall behind the main church, and your order will be brought to you.
Members of the church parish and the Ladies of Philoptochus have been hard at work since early September and worked through October, three days a week, eight to nine hours a day rolling dough, dicing nuts, sifting flour and everything it takes to make the sale a success. And the couple of weeks before the sale requires even more hours and help with packaging, says bake sale chairwoman Thea Ballas.
"Being a small parish, we have small work crews," she says. "We have a core group of five people, then we get another three or four people who come for a few hours when their schedules permit. Many of them work or have to pick up children from school. Once we get closer to the sale, we will get more help."
Items for sale this year are:
- Kok: Small chocolate sponge cakes filled with a chocolate pastry cream and topped with a chocolate ganache.
- Koulourakia: There will be two types this year, one that's soft with sesame seeds and one that is a hard butter cookie.
- Paximathia: There are also two types of this biscotti-type cookie that will be offered, one with anisette and no nuts and one with almonds.
- Baklava: Layers of phyllo with nuts, spices and syrup.
- Kataifi: Shredded phyllo with a nut mixture and drizzled with syrup. Excellent with a cup of coffee.
- Finikia: Spice cookies, with syrup, and rolled in nuts.
- Kourambiethes: Butter cookies with toasted almonds and rolled in powdered sugar.
- Amygdalota: Cookies with ground almonds, sugar and flavorings.
- Almond coffee cake: Almonds, butter, eggs and sugar.
- Galatoboureko: These 8- by 8-inch pans of pita dough are filled with a custard mixture and topped with a lemon syrup.
- Tiropita: Phyllo pastry filled with feta cheese and egg mixture.
- Spanakopita: Phyllo with spinach, feta cheese and egg mixture available in appetizer size or pockets.
- Baklava cheesecake: The stuff of dreams.
- Sweet bread: Made with flour, milk, butter and sugar and seasoned with orange zest and mahleb, a cherry spice.
- Loukoumi: A confection coated in powdered sugar.
And Ballas' favorite Greek cookbook, "Greek Cooking in an American Kitchen," will be on sale as well. "It has every Greek recipe, and they are so easy to follow," she says.
If you can't make it to the sale on Nov. 12, a second sale will be held Friday, Dec. 10, offering the same items as in the November sale except for loukoumi, galatoboureko, almond cakes and sweet bread. However, two new pastries will be added in December:
- Flogeres: Rolled phyllo dough made with ground walnuts and honey, then drizzled with chocolate.
- Saragli: A pinwheel shape; ground walnuts, rolled in phyllo and dipped in honey and lemon.
"Everything we sell can be frozen and will hold up very well in the freezer for at least a year," Ballas adds.
All proceeds go to area charities supported by the Ladies of Philoptochos. To place orders, go online to annunciationgreek.org as soon as possible to ensure you'll get the items you want.
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Contact Anne Braly at abraly@timesfreepress.com or annebraly.com.
Anne Braly