Basbousa -the Mediterranean delish!!
Born and brought up in Abudhabi ..I have always had my flair for the Mediterranean cuisine .I still remember how I craved for my Dads parcel of special packed food during the month of Ramadan during his night shifts.This time round when I went to a shopping mall in Cochin I pointed out to my husband the “Basbousa” telling him all stories of what it was.Back home and how could resist myself from baking it..these are some hardcore facts of being a foodie..
Basbousa is a very popular and tasty Mediterranean sweet cake. Cooked with semolina and soaked in simple sugar syrup this cake has different regional names ..in Arabic its Basbousa/Harisa , Turkey its Revani/Ravani, Lebanon its Nammoura , Armenian its Shemali … the roots or the origin of this cake is told to be Turkey .
- For the Syrup
- 1 ½ cup of sugar
- 1 ½ cup of water
- 1 tsp of rosewater
- Juice of ½ lemon
- For the cake batter
- 1 cup of semolina
- 1 cup of flour
- 1 cup of sugar
- 2 tsp of baking powder
- 2 tsp of vanilla essence
- 1 cup of yoghurt
- 3 eggs
- ½ cup of scraped coconut
- ½ cup of oil
- Almonds for garnish
- In a saucepan boil the water to make the syrup, add in the sugar and stir till it
- dissolves completely.
- Mix in the lemon juice and rosewater and let it cool.
- Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius.
- In a bowl, beat egg and sugar.
- Add in the yoghurt, oil and sieve in the flour.
- Mix in baking powder, vanilla essence and coconut.
- Transfer to a greased baking dish and bake till the cake is done or for about 30
- minutes.
- Garnish with almonds.
- Pour the sugar syrup over the cake when the cake is still hot.
- Serve when cold.
A homemaker who fell head over heels in love with food -an award-winning cookbook author, food blogger, award-winning culinary demonstrator