Karpouzopita Recipe: Aegean watermelon pie
An ideal summer dessert. Karpouzopita, as crazy as it sounds, can be found around the Cyclades and the Aegean generally, where it’s sometimes also known as karpouzénia.
If you’ve been to Greece in the summer you would have likely noticed an excess of watermelon, with greengrocers, shops and street vendors stocking bottomless mountains of them, and complimentary platters following meals at many restaurants. Here’s a great use of the abundance of watermelon if you want to try something a little less known.
Whatever the recipe, it’s fundamentally watermelon, cleared of its pips and reduced to a pulp, combined with flour and honey, topped with sesame and cooked in the oven for about an hour.
It’s important that the watermelon is ripe and crisp – not soft, mushy and overripe, otherwise the pie will lack structure, and you want to be able to taste some watermelon pieces too.
How to make Karpouzopita
Ingredients:
For a 30cm x 20cm baking dish, at least 3-4cm in depth
½ a large watermelon for 1kg or watermelon flesh
250g plain flour
3-4 tbsps of honey
Sesame seeds
Ground cinnamon
Olive oil
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (fan).
Cut half the large watermelon into small pieces so you can easily pop out the pips, removing the rind. Remove all of the pips and place the cleared watermelon flesh into a bowl on a scale until you have 1kg in weight. (If you’re under 1kg, use some of the other half. Or, if you have any pieces left over… you can eat them.)
Once you have 1kg of flesh on the scale, use your hands to crush the watermelon pieces into a rough liquid pulp, with some small (≤1cm) pieces still in there.
Remove any extra pips that you might see have found their way into the watermelon mixture, drizzle in the honey and stir well to incorporate as much as possible. After that, sieve the flour into a separate bowl and gradually stir into the watermelon mixture.
Lightly oil the baking dish all over with some olive oil and sprinkle all over with cinnamon and sesame seeds. This adds a layer of flavour and also helps the pita to develop somewhat of a crust and not stick to the bottom of the tray.
Gradually empty the watermelon mixture into the baking dish, slowly pouring into the centre from one end of the tray until the other (to avoid disturbing any sesame seeds and cinnamon on the base too much).
Lightly drizzle with more of the oil all over the top and sprinkle with plenty of sesame seeds and cinnamon. Place in the oven for about an hour, until golden-brown and crisp on the outside. You’ll notice that the karpouzopita will begin to rise around the sides of the baking dish after 30 minutes or so – and you’ll know when it’s ready when it’s also risen in the middle too.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool and set for at least 30 minutes before cutting into pieces. The pita should sink a little and set. You can then cut it into squares, triangles, or rhombus shapes (μπακλαβωτά κομμάτια) as you can see I’ve done here.
You can serve it warm and gooey after 30 minutes, once it has cooled, or straight out of the fridge. Add a drizzle of honey if you really like or, alternatively, sieve some icing sugar on top.
