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Πλατσέντα Λέσβου (Lesbos Placenta)
Πλατσέντα Λέσβου (Lesbos Placenta) is a traditional Greek recipe for a classic baklava-like confection of filo pastry with a walnut stuffing shaped into a spiral, covered in honey syrup and served. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Greek version of: Lesbos Placenta (Πλατσέντα Λέσβου).
prep time
15 minutes
cook time
90 minutes
Total Time:
105 minutes
Additional Time:
(+cooling and chilling)
Serves:
9
Rating: 
Tags : Vegetarian RecipesBaking RecipesCake RecipesGreece Recipes
Today, placenta (πλατσέντα) is used to describe a baklava-type dessert of layered pastry leaves containing crushed nuts that is baked and then covered in honey. This is a speciality of the Greek island of Lesbos. The dessert is ancient in origin and originally contained cheese.
Ingredients:
For the syrup:
250ml of water
130g granulated sugar
50ml honey
Juice of ½ lemon
For the pie:
300ml of ouzo
260ml of water
200ml olive oil + for extra for greasing the leaves
350g fine cake flour
300g walnuts
130g cornflour + extra
1 tbsp salt
½ tbsp ground cinnamon
½ tbsp ground cloves
Method:
Begin with the syrup, combine the water, sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook for 2-3 minutes. Take off the heat then add the honey and stir until dissolved. Set aside to cool.
For the dough, sift together the flour, cornflour, cinnamon, salt and cloves in a bowl. Add the ouzo, oil, water to the bowl of a mixer and mix with a dough hook until the ingredients come together and a dough is formed.
Transfer the dough to a bowl, cover with clingfilm (plastic wrap) and set aside to rest for an hour. Divide the dough into 10 equal portions, shaping these into balls. Working with one ball at a time, roll out on your work surface with a rolling pin into a round shape of 30 cm diameter. Dust the work surface, rolling pin and dough with a little cornflour if needed.
Sprinkle the dough with a little olive oil and add a few walnuts on top. Close the dough by rolling it, forming a sausage shape. Curl this on itself like a snail shell and place it in the centre of an oiled round baking dish (about 30cm diameter).
Take the next piece of dough, roll out, cover with walnuts and roll into a rope. Add this to the end of the pastry spiral, wrapping it around to extend the spiral shape. Continue in the same fashion until all the dough has been used up and added to extend the spiral.
Sprinkle a little oil over the top of the spiral, then transfer to the centre of an oven pre-heated to 200°C and bake for 15 minutes. At this point lower the oven temperature to 170°C and continue baking for a further 50 to 60 minutes, until the pastry is golden in colour.
As soon as it is ready, remove from the oven and pour over the syrup. Set aside to cool, cut into pieces and serve.
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