Traditional Easter food in Cyprus deserves a whole book, which might not even be able to cover all the existing variations of the recipes. This is true for flaounes as well.
Flaounes is an either sweet or salty pastry that needs some extra time for preparation. This process usually gathers together several women of the family for a few hours, as the complexity of preparation and the desired amount of flaounes requires a lot of effort and time. An old tradition says that one should make a batch for the family, a batch for guests, and enough batches for visiting others.
Flaounes consist of three parts: pastry, filling, and glaze with sesame. The filling is usually where each housewife experiments with ingredients—mixing different cheeses like halloumi and romano with preferred flavors like salt and mint. This makes every batch of flaounes truly unique.
