Next: 1 Jan 2027
Vasilopita and St Basil's Day
The Greek New Year's cake with a coin baked inside, scented with mastic and mahleb.
Spices for Vasilopita and St Basil's Day
On 1 January, the Greek family cuts the vasilopita, a sweet bread or cake with a hidden coin, and the first slices go to Christ, the Virgin and the poor. The cake is perfumed with orange zest, mahleb and mastic, two aromatic spices that grow only in a few places: mastic is the resin of a tree found on the island of Chios. The tradition honours St Basil, who gave to the poor, and the cutting is accompanied by a family prayer.
The spices
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Vasilopita" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Mahleb: Steve Hurst @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database, Public domain, source
- Mastic: Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0, source