Egyptian Semolina Syrup Cake - Basboosa

Basboosa is a traditional Egyptian semolina cake, made with few ingredients but tastes great. Its a soft, moist cake that soaked in honey sugar syrup. Its very simple to make and tastes good with tea. My recipe made quiet sweeter cakes. So next time I will reduce the sugar used for syrup a little bit.

Things needed for Cake

Semolina/ Rava/ Cream of wheat - 1/2 Cup
All purpose flour - 1/3 Cup
Sugar - 1/4 Cup

Yogurt - 1/4 Cup
Water - 1/3 Cup
Butter - 1/4 Cup
Baking powder - 1/2 Tsp

Almonds - 10 nos.

Things needed for syrup

Sugar - 1/3 Cup

Honey - 1 Tbsp

Lemon juice - 1 Tbsp

Water - 1/3 Cup

First prepare the sugar syrup by boiling sugar, water, lemon juice and honey in a pan. The syrup is ready when it has reduces to about half of its original volume. Turn off the heat and let it cool. Adding honey gives lot more flavors to the cake. Few recipes also call for adding lemon zest, which I didn't use.

Mix semolina, flour and baking powder in a blow. Beat yogurt with butter and sugar until all the sugar is dissolved and a creamy texture is obtained.  Now add the dry ingredients to the yogurt mixture and mix until there are no lumps. This cake batter will not be like usual cake batter. It will be quiet thicker.

Grease a baking pan with butter and spread the cake batter over it using a spatula. Now lightly mark the diamond or square shapes into the batter using a knife. Place the almonds in the center of each square marked.

Bake the cake in the oven pre-heated to 350F for about 20 minutes or until the cake is done.

Remove the cake from oven and let it cool for couple of minutes. Now pour the cooled sugar syrup on to the hot cake and it absorb all the syrup. Cut the cake along the pre-cut slots and serve with tea or coffee.

This moist, soft and simple cake goes to Tobias's 11th Mediterranean cooking event-Egypt