Sweets of Greece

I never met a bakery I didn’t like. Hyperbole, maybe, but considering the breadth of offerings at most of them, I’m usually gonna find something to satisfy my eternal sweet tooth. Thing about Greece, there seems to be one on every corner, in every town, on every island and so on. With so many opportunities to get a sugar high the odds were definitely in my favor to find a sweet treat. Of course, the hotel I stayed at in Athens had a bakery right around the corner from the entrance and its offerings tempted me daily to eat them with abandon! Thus my chance to live up to my eating mantra, “I’m on vacation!”

To say these places had options is an understatement. There were so many things it was overwhelming at times, particularly as I wanted to try everything, which was impossible and always pick a winner, also hard to do. Just because something looks pretty and enticing doesn’t mean it always is—I refer you to my past rants about Chinese bakeries. Looks nice, but really just puffed up air. I knew I wouldn’t have such a problem in Greece as my tour guide raved about the local bakeries and I was familiar with their offerings from SF places where honey is used as a coating and I was about to find out just how much it is used.

Go figure, the first thing my eyes glom onto was some red velvet cake—Greek style—and no I am not passing it up. I think we can all see the difference and hopefully know how I feel about icing/frosting—the more the better. Here, not the case it would seem. It was definitely red food colored chocolate cake and the middle layers were cream cheese frosting. It also had this thin layer of some kind of crushed chocolate cookie along the bottom. Different, but not really enough to be noticeable. Still, it was a lovely dense, mostly moist slice that did evoke flavor memories of what you get here. The frosting was super close to being almost cheesecake like in thickness, which I kind of liked. Though, let’s be honest, I really wanted frosting on the top and down the back because I’m a glutton and it is what I like. For a $3-ish slice of cake, it did hit my sweet spot enough to enjoy.

Here’s your first taste of honey. A croissant, soaked in honey, sprinkled with powdered sugar, with thin slices of cheese inside. Guess you could say it sweet/savory thing which I am all about, and it was different, though not sure it was totally what my senses were looking for at the time. One note, when I say honey, I don’t mean the super thick stuff you squeeze out of your bear onto your English muffin. Here it was a more liquified honey almost like a sugar water you could brush on or dip stuff into. It also tasted way sweeter. Sometimes teeth achingly so.

**honey soaked phyllo dough filled with cream**

This little gem was exactly that, little. It fit right in the palm of my hand and looked like a mini ice cream cone. Deep fried phyllo dough lightly dipped in honey, dusted with sugar and filled with sweet custard. It was like a crunchy little sugar bomb. The custard was thick and solid and more like a rosette on the top. It did not extend to the bottom of the cone. Plus, it was super crispy and kind of shattered upon first bite. Oh well.

Cherry cheesecake, pretty self explanatory. I got this one on my second to last night in Greece, I was just in the mood. A solid hunk of baked cheesecake on thin bed of crushed speculoos covered in cherries. This is old school New York style type cheesecake, no light and fluffy going on here. It was so hearty it took me two sittings to get through. We will just look beyond the fact the second sitting was breakfast the next morning because, “I’m on vacation!” Went really well with a zero sugar Mountain Dew to kickstart my day. Truly a hunk a hunk of hefty cheesecake.

**chocolate phyllo dough, custard fruit tart, cream filled cake**

Minis seemed to be a thing at a number of bakeries which was definitely a boon for me as I could sample size my way through some things. Like chocolate phyllo dough with honey glaze and chocolate cream, a custard fruit tart and small round chocolate cake pieces soaked in honey, filled with cream and topped with chocolate. Pretty sure they were calling that last one a donut or something. I just called whoo boy sweeeet! Not necessarily a good thing—strange coming from me I know, but even my system can hit an overload and I think it is the soaking in honey cake that really pushed it since the chocolate part was more like flavor essence than sugar addition. This was just my first taste experience with honey overload and chocolate underwhelming.

**cream filled chocolate donut, chocolate eclair, chocolate tart**

Here was another variation on the “chocolate donut” from above except it was vanilla cake instead. Still soaked in honey with vanilla cream filling dipped in honey then covered in chocolate. Another sugar bomb supreme. The eclair and mini chocolate tart where a come down!

So I had just finished touring the archaeological site at Olympia Greece—see, pretty! When I ventured into a little corner store that was just chock full of treats, all in Greek but with charming little pictures I could look at and try and figure out what exactly it was. It is how I found this…..

….chocolate cake wrapped in honey soaked deep fried phyllo dough covered in chocolate. Yeah, I’m going down that road again, but seriously, how was I going to pass this up? Especially after I had gone to the trouble of having the lady behind the counter tell me what this was I couldn’t not get it, right? She called it a chocolate honey bun. Not sure what I can say about it. It was exactly as described, though weirdly, the cake part was a little dry considering the phyllo was all honeyed up. The chocolate shell was typical packaged goods waxy and after two bites on this I was done. It felt like I was eating sweet without any flavor. If I want that I can suck on a sugar cube.

Seems even on a cruise ship you can cake it up too, particularly on buffet nights. Caveat, the ones on the left looked nice but tasted pre-packaged. As for the thing on the right, I can’t even begin to understand what they were trying to do.

**chocolate dipped cookies and ice cream cone**

More minis! Came across these on Mykonos and when I got ‘em I initially thought they were something else. I mean obviously the chocolate dipped cookies are what they are but I think I misunderstood her when I asked about the cones. I asked what was in them and she said cream. Me, I immediately think the kind of filling in eclairs or donuts. I found out when I got back to the boat she meant cream as in ice cream, like a drumstick. Greece is hot you know and ice cream melts and things become liquid. Well, I don’t like ice cream anyway, so whateves.

Wandering around Crete I stumbled across this massive chocolate donut and it is as big as the picture makes it seem. Though, sadly, no cream filling and not much taste on this. Just dough and another waxy chocolate shell.

After a visit to the temple of Apollo (there is a lot more there than just that but this pic kind of captures the majesty of the surrounding hills and what is left of the temple) we were on the way back to Athens and stopped off at this roadside cafe where I had the great grilled lamb and a surprising dessert.

A Greek version of vanilla cream pie with Speculoos as the base. It wasn’t what I was expecting but definitely a treat. Creamy custard with a whipped chantilly cream topping that was both thick and light. Add in the buttery, cinnamon crispness of the cookie base and it was just yummy.

Yes, I have saved the best for last. At the same bakery I had the beer and spinach and feta pie I saw and smelled this as they brought the tray out of the oven. The smell was intoxicating. The called it milopita, we’d call it apple cake. Somewhere between a moist cake and a bread pudding with apples. I couldn’t say no and they served me up a huge chunk of this fresh from the oven deliciousness. I don’t know, maybe I was hungry and craving some sweet comfort food. Maybe I was tired after a long day of walking around Rhodes. Maybe I just love cake. Yeah, I’ll go with the last one. It was all I could do to not buy the whole pan, so I just settled for another slice to takeaway.

An array of hits and misses but that is the joys of food on vacation, you gotta try stuff to find the winners and when I came across, man they were super winners. I still dream of the apple cake. Eating and discovering new faves is one of the joys of traveling. Sure, you may have a few duds but best to just chalk it up to experience. Most likely you will come across something that really makes your taste buds sit up and go wow. And after all, YOU’RE ON VACATION! ENJOY IT!

And now back to our regular programming.