Greek Cheese & Honey Cheesecake: Melopita

This Greek cheesecake is called "honey pie," "μελοπιτα" (Melopita) in Greek, and it seems to have originated on the Aegean island of Sifnos, although there are other similar versions in Greece, especially on other Aegean islands, and some of the recipes use the cheese mixture as a filling for a pie crust. Instead of using one larger baking dish, I used some 5 inch pie pans when I made the Melopita for this article. Ricotta cheese is a highly suitable substitute for some of the similar Greek cheeses used to make Melopita, but which are not always easily obtained elsewhere.  

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
2 eggs
1/3 cup honey
1/4 teaspoon thyme leaves
1 heaping tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
(for serving) ground cinnamon + honey

Crush the thyme leaves into fine particles. Mix together the ricotta, flour, eggs, honey, finely ground thyme leaves and lemon zest. Mix until smooth (I just use a hand mixer). Butter a baking dish, pie pan(s), or cake pan. Preheat oven to 350 F. Bake about 50 minutes or until the top is lightly browned. Allow to cool, then drizzle with some honey and sprinkle on some cinnamon.

In the top two photos, I inverted the small tart pan to remove the Melopita

In this photo, I removed the Melopita straight out of the tart pan (you can see the lightly browned top beneath the honey and cinnamon ... 

One of the Melopita still in the pie pan ...

WORD HISTORY:
Abyss (Abysm)-The ultimate origin of this word is uncertain, and it "may" not be Indo European. Transliterated Ancient Greek had "byssós," which meant, "deep area, bottom." This was then given the prefix "a," which in Greek meant "no, not, without;" thus, the transliterated noun "abyssos," meaning, "bottomless pit," which was also used adjectivally ("bottomless, boundless, unfathomable"). Latin borrowed the word as "abyssus" (bottomless pit) and English borrowed the word circa 1400, meaning "depths of the sea," but also in the context of creation, "vast chaos." Latin "abyssus" also produced "abyssimus," seemingly a superlative form meaning, "of the greatest depths," and the figurative, "utterly terrible, awful, 'abysmal' "). This passed to Old French as a noun, "abisme," meaning, "the greatest depths of the Earth," and also used to mean, "Hell." This was borrowed by English from French in the early 1300s as "abysm" meaning, "the greatest depths of Earth, bottomless pit." In common usage it was overtaken by its close relative with the spelling "abyss," but "abysm" remained around in poetry and high style writings, although it now seems to be a rarity indeed.