Eliopitta. Cypriot olive cake.

You know when you’re wondering half-dazed around the supermarket, talking to yourself, thinking a million thoughts about what to cook next, what looks nice, what’s on offer….and suddenly you come across a jewel that makes your flippin’ day!! For me, these ‘jewels’ may be in the form of Cyprus potatoes with a covering of red soil from my ancestral land still clinging to them, or it could be a nice bottle of vanilla extract that I’ve not seen before….today that ‘jewel was a jar of olives.
I kid you not.

Yes, readers, I have maybe gotten a tad too excited to find these, but nevertheless I hope you will share my enthusiasm (Or at the very least, pretend to)

My ‘needle in a haystack’ olives

I can and have found black olives, green olives, olives in brine, stuffed olives, Kalamata olives, in fact all manner of olives in my local supermarkets. But hardly ever these olives!

Greek style pitted dry black olives.

I love them!
and they are perfect for my Cypriot savoury olive and onion cake.

In fact if I don’t have these specific olives I don’t bother making it.

I like the fact they are salty and dry and pitted (saves me from a fiddly, boring job) and darn tasty.

olives, chopped onion, coriander and dried mint

A rather ‘rustic’ look

Take a peek inside!

Lovely with a huge cuppa, still warm from the oven.

Eliopitta

2 small jars of crespo pitted, dry black olives (or 1.5 cups approx of other pitted black olives if you must!)

1 onion, finely chopped (I like the taste of onion, so next time I may add another)

1 small bunch of fresh coriander (to yield one cup, tightly packed)

1 tbsp dried mint (optional)

3 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup of oil (half olive and half vegetable oil)

1.5 cups (contents of 1 x 410g tin) evaporated milk.

4 eggs (medium).

method:
I’d love to say that there is a wildly complicated method, full of fiddly, time consuming steps only for the more advanced (ahem!) cook…

But it’s not. It’s really easy.

just bung it all into a bowl and give it a good ole stir!

Pour into a greased bundt or ring pan and cook at 160 deg. C for between 50 mins – 1 hr.
(Check if it’s cooked with a knife or skewer, if it comes out clean it’s cooked.)

try and wait until it’s at least room temperature to eat a slice 😉

smells divine…..

14 comments on “Eliopitta. Cypriot olive cake.”

Those crespo olives are very easy to find here -at least the ones with the pits in, and I also bake a lot of savoury cakes for picnics, as nibbles, etc. I'm bookmarking your recipe :-)xx

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I really love the look of this and think its great that you were excited about your olive find 🙂

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Thanks Muppy! :-))Julie, I'd love someone to make this recipe!

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Glad you had a little something brighten a trip round the supermarket 🙂 Your savoury bread looks lovely.

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I love this cake. You gave us a slightly different recipe years ago and I used to make it a lot. It had evaporated milk in it for a start and there was no mint. I'm going to try this one at the weekend. Thanks Anna.Francesca x

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Oh my gosh!!Fran, it's the same recipe but I've accidentally missed out the evaporated milk!!I'll amend it now!(I didn't use to add mint, but it's very traditional in Cypriot olive recipes that's why I use it now. Though I guess it's optional)Thanks Fran! X

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Don't you just love those special finds that sets your inspiration on fire? This cake looks incredible and I would love to give it a try.

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What a fascinating recipe! I can totally see how this would work!

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Thanks for your comments!It would be lovely if someone did try the recipe, it's very easy.

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I tried the recipe Anna and thank you! It was very last minute but I wanted to let you know I used Bob's Red Mill gluten free flour, Ener G Egg replacer and rice milk and this recipe STILL came out!!!!!! One quick question though, I ended up accidentally using 1 tbsp of baking soda : ( BUT my question was, why didn't my bread rise? I did use two small loaf tins, so would it have risen better in a bundt tin?

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