Sunday, February 06, 2011

Basboussa cake and a WARNING

WARNING - HIGH CALORIES POST INCOMING
READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

All Middle Eastern pastries I know of are calorie bombs and basboussa (basbousa) is not an exception, it has loads of sugar and butter in it. However, my husband told me recently he started caring for his calorie intake, making sure he takes the most of everything, fat, carbohydrates and so on, generally more energy. So I thought he would love this cake.
Believe it or not though, it was too sweet for him. So I recommend using half the sugar in the recipe and generally half the ingredients (which makes 1/4 of the sugar), unless you have a large family or don't mind this cake for more than a week. It makes just too much for two people only and it would be very difficult to eat more than one argyle at a time. What you see in the picture is half of the total amount of dough, covering a tin around 23 cm in diameter.

This recipe is with yogurt but I have come across some without.
Basbousa cake

Recipe:

3 cups semolina
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup yogurt
200 g melted butter

25-30 blanched almonds, or any other whole nuts

Syrup:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 tsp rosewater
1 tsp lemon juice


Method:

In a deep dish mix the semolina, sugar, flour, coconut and baking powder. Add the melted butter and mix well, then the yogurt and repeat. If needed add a bit more yogurt. Divide in two.
Oil a really large pan or two smaller ones (around 23 cm in diameter) and flatten the dough. You can use your fingers to do so.
Cut into argyles and top with a while nut in the middle of each.
Bake at 160 degrees (fan oven) or 180 degrees for 40 minutes until golden brown.
In the meantime dissolve the sugar in a saucepan with the water, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add rosewater and lemon juice and leave to cool.

When the cake is ready remove from the oven, leave on a wire rack to cool down a bit and until still warm, cover with the cooled syrup.
It is very important to cover hot cake with cold syrup.

Leave to soak well and then enjoy! (Responsibly) :)

Basbousa Cake

2 comments:

Xiaolu @ 6 Bittersweets said...

LOL I love the warning. I feel like it's just honey and I'm the bee. Like with this many calories, I know it must be really really tasty ;p. Seriously though, this looks and sounds divine.

Sneige said...

Oh it was good! :) But I couldn't have more than two pieces! Though I could always have the roasted almond on top, mmmm delicious :D

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