Description
Delicious cake made from fine or coarse semolina flour, and syrup and garnished with roasted almonds.
Ingredients
Scale
- 2 cups semolina flour
- 1 cup desiccated coconut
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1/4 cup tahini paste
- 1 ⁄2 cup sugar (or condensed milk)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup plain yogurt
- whole roasted almonds for garnish
For The Syrup
- 1–1/2 cups sugar
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- A pinch of cloves powder
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 13X9X2″ pan then spread the tahini paste onto it. The tahini paste will prevent the basbousa from becoming burned. Set aside. Without the tahini is still okay, though, so no worries at all.
- Mix all the basbousa ingredients, except the whole almonds in a large bowl. No need to use a mixer as you can achieve this with a good ladle, spatula, or even your hands. Make sure that all ingredients are well mixed.
- Transfer the semolina mixture onto the greased baking dish and press using the back of a spoon. You may need to wet the spoon with water every now and then so that it slides easily on top of the batter.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the batter into diamond shapes and design with an almond each.
- Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or until it becomes golden in color.
- Make the syrup while the cake is in the oven. Mix all the ingredients for the syrup and heat in a small casserole pot until it reached boiling point. Stir constantly. The syrup is done when it is a little more than half its original amount or if the mixture has thickened enough. Tip: cold syrup runs better on the hot basbousa. Sometimes, I put the syrup in the freezer for a few minutes while the cake is being baked.
- Run the sharp knife onto the slits you had done before baking the basbousa so that they are separated. Pour the syrup over the hot basbousa.
- Let cool and serve.