Semolina Cake

Over the weekend, I had my family over for dinner. None of them are big sweet eaters although my aunt does a fair amount of baking herself. I knew I needed to serve something for dessert that would go nicely with tea and coffee and wasn't too over the top so I decided on this semolina cake. I had made it before successfully and, although there is a sugar syrup poured over the hot cake, once cooled the sweetness of the sugar mellows considerably.

Semolina is coarsely ground durum wheat that is highly glutinous. In its package it looks like cornmeal but once baked in a cake, it expands making the cake grainy. There is no flour added so the texture is not like traditional cake. Without the sugar syrup, the cake would be dry and crumbly. With it, each bite was syrupy and moist. It is very similar to the Middle Eastern cake called Basboosa.

The cake was enjoyable to eat and everyone liked it. It is best eaten cut into small squares or diamonds and is an easy recipe to try when the desire to explore foreign baked goods takes hold.