Basbousa is a delightful middle eastern dessert , made with Semolina and dessicated Coconut and drizzled with sugar Syrup.
Basbousa , Namoura, Revani, Hareseh....many names for this wonderful dish.
There are various versions of this easy to make Semolina cake.
Some add yogurt, some add milk. It. can be made with eggs or without. Many recipes also use all purpose flour along with semolina.
You can infuse a flavor of your choice to this wonderful dessert. Whatever flavor you use in the sugar syrup, use the same in the cake.
If using lemon juice in the sugar syrup, add lemon zest to the cake batter.
You could use vanilla, orange blossom water, rose water, cinnamon and star anise.
Top it with nuts of your choice...be it pistachio or almonds. You could sprinkle nuts before baking or garnish with finely chopped nuts and coconut ,like I have done.
Basbousa is a term in the Middle east that refers to a very sweet semolina - sort of- cake. Verbally in Arabic we can call our loved ones "basbousa".
This recipe gives you a mildly sweet basbousa. For a sweeter version you can increase the sugar in the syrup, increase water aswell accordingly.
You can bake it in a 6" Bundt pan. If you don't have one then you can make one like I did. I placed a salad ring mould in the centre of a 6" pan. Don't forget to grease and dust the ring mould.
You could otherwise use a 5" round or square tin.
Ingredients
Coarse Rawa 1/2 cup 90 gms
Dessicated Coconut 1/4 cup 20 gms
Thick Yogurt 1/2 cup 120 gms
Ghee 1/4cup melted 40 gms
Baking Powder 1/2 tsp
Lemon Zest 1 tsp
Sugar 1/4 cup 50 gms
Garnish
Pistachio 2 tbsp finely chopped
Dessicated Coconut 2 tbsp
Sugar Syrup
Sugar 1/3 cup
Water 1/3 cup +2 tbsp
Lemon juice 1 tsp
Method
Preheat your oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
Whisk rawa, dessicated Coconut and baking powder.
Whisk yogurt and sugar in another pan. Now add in melted ghee and lemon zest .
Mix in dry ingredients into wet.
Do not overmix else gluten will develop and your cake would turn out tough.
Pour the batter into prepared tin.
Tap it on the counter to remove any air bubbles.
Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes.
Check with a skewer. It should come out clean.
Now grill it on top shelf at 180 degrees till it gets a nice golden color.
Mine took 10 minutes to get the desired color.
While the cake is in the oven, prepare the syrup.
Bring sugar and water to boil in a heavy saucepan.
Now let it simmer for 8-10 minutes.
Add lemon juice.
Once the cake is ready pour hot syrup over hot cake.
Cover it with aluminium foil.
Now keep it back in the hot but switched off oven for 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven and let it sit on the wire rack as is for atleast 1 hour
Garnish with chopped Pistachio and dessicated Coconut.