Looked through a bunch of Basbousa recipes to bake a little one for our HO Egyptian group dinner last night.
I was really skeptical about this Egyptian semolina cake.
There is an Indian semolina dessert with virtually identical ingredients (rava no sheero / suji ka halwa) - semolina is lightly roasted with ghee (or oil), then sugar, water or milk is added, which the semolina absorbs and fluffs up. Finally, flavorings are added (cardamom, saffron, nuts). This is eaten as with a spoon, like a firm pudding.
For basbousa, the semolina is mixed with butter or ghee, then mixed with a liquid until it absorbs it and looks sandy. It’s then pressed into a greased baking dish and baked. You make a sugar syrup while it bakes, and then pour that over the cake and let it soak in.
Recipes vary on what the liquid addition is (yogurt vs milk vs water), what the sugar syrup proportion and viscosity are, and various other tweaks like resting the semolina before baking, resting it after soaking, what flavorings are added, and so on.
I used a combination of greek yogurt and water, cut back on the sugar for the syrup, and used both rose and orange blossom water for flavor. I rested the semolina mixture for a few hours before baking as one of the recipes suggested. I let the syrup soak in overnight, covered in the warm oven, as another did.
The outcome was much more delicious than I expected (expectation was low because I didn’t follow one single recipe, which can often result in disaster). I asked the owner/chef of the Egyptian restaurant to have a taste and be honest – he said it was very good, but next time I should rest the semolina an entire day before baking to let the tang of the yogurt develop more.
I didn’t have room for dessert after that massive meal, but there was a piece left that came home with me, and it was delicious today – the rose and orange blossom really shone through. I might actually make this again, but I’ll follow a single recipe so I can get to a better texture for the cake (this was a bit crumbly vs. what I imagine it’s supposed to be from pictures). There are cheat versions that use eggs (even Ottolenghi has a few semolina cakes soaked in syrup that I can only imagine are riffs on basbousa, but I don’t want to add eggs if the original recipe doesn’t need them).
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I also baked half a batch of brownies (Medrich brown butter no nuts) because we had a birthday girl who likes chocolate.
I’m a bit puzzled by the crust, which is usually glossy — I specially bought white sugar for this too (I only stick turbinado otherwise).
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