Lenten Cake and Lazarakia

 This Saturday is called the Saturday of Lazaros.  In years gone by I've made Lazarakia, little sweet-bread-men in their funeral wraps. They represent Lazaros rising from the dead.  A bit creepy really but very tasty hot from the oven.  Very traditional but I didn't bake any this year

This cake recipe is easier........... 

A cake with no eggs, butter or milk

K loved this one so it's safe to make another one and send out the recipe.  It's vegan, very easy and lots of flavour

In a bowl whisk

1 cup of olive or seed oil

2 cups of sugar

3 cups of some sort of fruit juice. I added a shot glass of orange liqueur too  

Mix in 4 cups of self-raising flour

It's a very sloppy mixture

Pour into a cake baking dish. I used one of those with a hole/funnel in the middle

Bake around 44 minutes at 180o

It sounds very different from the usual cake with butter and milk and eggs. And the mixture is so wet.  Amazingly it turns out perfectly .  Some cakes like this are crumbly. This one is moist and rises well.

I've made three of them this Lent

NB

A memory. I posted about Lazarakia a few years ago when I had actually made a batch. Someone commented how ghoulish they were and they wouldn't eat them.  It hadn't even occurred to me that they might be seen that way.  They're so much a part of greek tradition I just accepted them as part of the pageant.  I look at them in a different light now.  But I'd still bake them, and eat them, if I could be bothered. Hotcross buns are similar but far more acceptable, in my family