Eggless Basboosa Cake | Egyptian Basbousa Semolina Cake

Egyptian Semolina Cake - Basbousa 

Basboosa / Basbousa is a traditional middle eastern cake. There are many variations to Basboosa like honey syrup, rose water, orange blossom, with eggs, with yoghurt/ milk and so on. I have always loved the texture of semolina cakes, although I did have inhibitions that it would taste like kesari/ semolina pudding. I was wrong, the other day I tried Basboosa/ Basbousa an Egyptian dessert cake for the second time. My first time was a big disaster I think it was the recipe that failed me. This time I was sure of the results when I saw the recipe I just knew it will work. I used yellow semolina it was packaged with the name Basini rava in the Indian store. Its more fine than the regular rava and also it is yellow in colour. The kind of rava / semolina you use will determine how good this basboousa will turn out to be. The use of coconut and syrup in the base of this cake makes it more decadent and the topping of warm syrup on the hot cake lets the cake absorb all the syrup making it more juicy and moist to the bite.

Eggless Basboosa Cake

Eggless Semolina/ Suji Cake

Bousboosa Cake Recipe

BASBOOSA/ BASBOUSA SEMOLINA CAKE RECIPE {EGGLESS}

Recipe Source - Here slightly modified, refer notes
Prep time - 10 mins
Bake time - 25 mins
Serves - 16-18 small to medium pieces
Serving suggestion - as a dessert

Ingredients

For Syrup 

Sugar - 1 cup
Water - 1 cup
Flavouring - 1 tsp (rose/orange/pineapple)
Lemon juice - 2 tsp

For the Cake

Semolina / Yellow rava / Basini rava - 2 cup
Sugar (castor/ fine) - 1 cup
Dessicated coconut - 1/4 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Sugar syrup - 3 tbsp (follow ingredients above)
Milk - 1 cup
Melted butter - 1/4 cup + extra to grease pan
Vanilla extract. essence - 2 tsp

Method

1. In a saucepan add the water and sugar, bring it to a boil and let it cook until the sugar is fully dissolved. Switch off add the flavouring and lemon juice, stir and  set aside.
2. In a mixing bowl add all the dry ingredients - semolina, sugar, baking powder, coconut and make a well in the centre. To this add the melted butter, milk, syrup and mix gently until well combined. 
3. The batter will be like thick cake batter set aside for 5 minutes. Now prep the baking tin with butter, grease all sides.
4. Pour the prepared batter to the baking tin and set aside for 1 hour. Covered with a cloth.
5. Preheat oven to 200 C for 10 minutes. Pop the baking pan into centre of the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and using a greased knife make cuts into the cake and garnish with almonds.
6. Place the pan again into the oven and bake for 15 minutes until the sides start leaving the pan and the ends are slightly golden. 
7. Warm the syrup and keep ready. Remove the cake from the oven and using your knife sharpen the cuts and pour the warm syrup on the hot cake.
8. Set on a wire rack to cool for 1 hour or until the cake is completely cool. Remove the cut slices and serve.
9. Store the pieces in an air tight container for upto a week or until it lasts. 
10. Remember the cake tastes even more beautiful the next day.

Eggless Basboosa Recipe

COOKS WISDOM

TIP 1

1. Use find sugar/ castor sugar/ freshly powdered sugar to the cake batter. Thick granulated sugar may not melt fast.

TIP 2

2. I used coconut powder, you can use desiccated coconut too. Its almost the same, the powder form is more fine. But coconut does add magic to this recipe.

TIP 3

3. I used really fine yellow semolina/ sooji/ rava, I had got this from an Indian grocery they have named it as basini rava I am sure it will be different from shop to shop. Regular upma rava/ semolina can be used as long as it is fine.

TIP 4

4. Original recipe calls for coving and setting aside the batter overnight before baking. I had kept it only for an hour. I had used fine semolina so it puffed up faster with the liquid added.

TIP 5

5. Please not that the longer you let the cake soak in the syrup the better the texture, I found that the cake was a little crisp on the top soon after I had served it after letting it cool down. The next day the entire cake was so moist and delicate.

TIP 6

6. Don't expect perfect slices of cake, it can be a bit out of shape its due to the nature of semolina and the syrup. But nevertheless the taste is amazing.

Linking this recipe to HBC June challenge host Nupur & Priya aks

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