Basbousa

A dense, golden semolina cake soaked in fragrant sugar syrup flavoured with rose water and orange blossom: soft, sticky, sweetly perfumed and garnished with a single blanched almond. Basbousa is the semolina cake eaten across Egypt, Sudan, the Levant and the Gulf; the same cake appears under different names from Morocco to Turkey.

Origin: Egypt & North Africa

From the journey of Wheat.

Semolina cakes soaked in syrup are among the oldest dessert forms in the Arab world, documented in medieval Arab cookbooks from Baghdad's Abbasid period. The technique of soaking a grain-based cake in hot sugar syrup to create a dense, moist crumb is the foundation of an entire family of Middle Eastern sweets, from basbousa to revani (Turkish) to namoura (Lebanese) to harissa (Jordanian). Each name and region has slight variations, coconut, tahini, yoghurt, but the principle of semolina-plus-syrup is ancient and universal across the wheat-growing lands of the Arab world.

Ingredients

  • 300 g fine semolina
  • 60 g desiccated coconut
  • 100 g sugar
  • 200 g full-fat yoghurt
  • 100 g unsalted butter, melted
  • 1.5 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • to decorate Blanched almonds
  • 250 g caster sugar (for syrup)
  • 200 ml water (for syrup)
  • 1 tbsp rose water
  • 1 tsp orange blossom water

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F. Grease a 30×20cm baking tray.
  2. Combine semolina, coconut, sugar, yoghurt, melted butter, baking powder and vanilla. Mix well. The batter will be thick.
  3. Spread evenly into the tray, about 2cm thick. Press an almond into the centre of each planned square or diamond (score the pattern lightly first). Leave to rest for 15 minutes.
  4. Bake for 25–30 minutes until deep golden on top and a skewer comes out clean.
  5. While baking, make the syrup: combine sugar and water, bring to the boil, stir to dissolve, simmer 5 minutes. Off the heat, add rose water and orange blossom water.
  6. Remove the cake from the oven and immediately pour the hot syrup evenly all over. Let it absorb completely before cutting along the scored lines. Serve at room temperature.
The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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