Basbousa: An Egyptian Semolina Yoghurt Cake

Basbousa is an Egyptian classic. It’s a dense semolina yoghurt cake flavoured with brown butter and honey and doused with a sweet citrus and rose honey syrup. You’ll find it in every pastry shop in Egypt and it’s often served with cream. But it’s not very easy to find here in the UK, so here’s an easy and delicious recipe for you to make your own.

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In my youth, when it was rare to know anyone who had travelled abroad, I was a lot more adventurous than I am now. At just eighteen I set off to work in a Swiss hotel in order to learn French, something I hadn’t managed to pick up at school. At various times I hitchhiked from home to France, to Spain and to Switzerland and when I had only just turned seventeen I went to stay with relatives of relatives in Egypt for a month.

Living Abroad

This was long before mobile technology had been invented. Phones were landline only and it was phenomenally expensive to phone overseas. In the first year I was away in Switzerland, I had one phone call with my mother and that was Christmas day.

In Egypt, it was nigh on impossible to phone home. When I went to live there a few years later, the only way of phoning home was to do it through an operator at the post office. It cost a fortune and you had to queue for hours.

Writing letters was the only real means of communication and what a slow process that could be. I’m sure my mother would have rested a lot easier in her bed if she had been able to contact me directly and vice versa.

Phone Home

Today things are very different. Life for migrants can be tough. Feelings of homesickness can sometimes be overwhelming and the ability to connect with friends and family can often be a lifesaver. Lebara are specifically set up to help migrants and to connect them to each other and to their friends and family back home.

Lebara Mobile offer a free SIM with low cost international calls, no contract and no hidden charges. To enable migrants to help each other, Lebara to Lebara calls are free. And you don’t have to be coming to or leaving from the UK either, Lebara operates globally. My experiences of living and working abroad would have been very different if I’d had something like this at my disposal.

Part of the founding ethics of Lebara is to give back to the communities that migrants come from. A proportion of the company’s profits go to the Lebara Foundation. This helps displaced communities around the world with housing, health and schooling. This has particular resonance at the moment with the devastating earthquake in Napal which has displaced so many people.

Egyptian Food

I loved Egypt and didn’t feel homesick as I was only there for a short time. But I desperately wanted to communicate the exciting discoveries I was making. Life in Egypt was a very different thing to life back home in Cornwall.

As for the food, it was a revelation and I fell in love with it immediately. It was here I had my first taste of hummus, falafel, ful medames, baba ganoush, shakshuka and so much more. Despina, the matriarch of the family I was staying with was probably the best cook I’ve ever come across. We had big sit down feasts of Middle Eastern cuisine every single day.

When it came to Egyptian pastries, I was in heaven: spiced nutty baklawa soaked in rose scented syrup, crumbly crunchy kunafa and the best nougat I’ve ever had anywhere. However, the one I got the most excited about was a plainer less well known cousin, basbousa. This is an Egyptian semolina yogurt cake which is made with brown butter and doused in rose and lemon syrup.

The reason I was so excited was that the pastry shop I particularly favoured served it with a rectangle of what looked and tasted remarkably like clotted cream. Cornish clotted cream in Egypt?

My Arabic was never good enough to find out exactly what it was, but that’s my bet and I do know something about clotted cream. I so wanted to exclaim to my mother the first time I discovered it, but that immediacy was not to be.

Basbousa: Egyptian Semolina Yoghurt Cake

Traditional Egyptian basbousa is a fairly thin bake, with a soft but dense texture. Unusually it’s made without eggs and uses semolina instead of flour. Once baked, you soak it in sweet syrup.

I’ve tried on a number of occasions to recreate the wonder that was basbousa, but I never managed it – until now. This could of course be false memory syndrome and nostalgia getting in the way.

This recipe for basbousa is less sweet than those I used to eat. I just can’t bring myself to apply the copious amounts of sugar stated in all the recipes I looked at. It is, nonetheless, a rather delicious sweet treat. I used kefir rather than yogurt, but this is the closest to the cakes I remember from all those years ago. It has the same delightful dense consistency and squiggly top.

Notes of lemon, rose, honey, cardamom and cloves combine to make a flavour reminiscent of Egypt at its best. Of course I had to have a slice topped with a dollop of Cornish clotted cream – for old times sake.

Cut the basbousa into squares or diamonds. Whichever way you cut it, place an almond on the top prior to baking. It makes all the difference. Not only do they look good, but who doesn’t adore a delectable roasted almond? I used some of the blanched marcona almonds I received from 3pFruits.

Basbousa Syrup

To make a traditional basbousa syrup, you only need sugar, water, rose and lemon. However, I like to spice mine up a bit with cardamom, clove and honey. The result is fragrant and delicious.

Other Middle Eastern Bakes You Might Like

• Blueberry white chocolate cake with labneh & rose
• Dubai chocolate filo rolls
• Maamoul: date & walnut stuffed cookies
• Pistachio & orange blossom cake
• Sesame halva biscuits
• Sticky orange pistachio buns

Keep in Touch

Thanks for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this Egyptian semolina and yoghurt cake, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. And do please rate the recipe. Have you any top tips? Do share photos on social media too and use the hashtag #tinandthyme, so I can spot them.

For more delicious and nutritious recipes follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard or Pinterest. And don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my weekly newsletter. Or why not join the conversation in our Healthy Vegetarian Whole Food Recipes Facebook Group?

If you’d like more Middle Eastern inspired recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious, of course.

Choclette x

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Basbousa: Egyptian Semolina Yoghurt Cake

This Egyptian classic dessert, is a dense semolina yoghurt cake flavoured with burnt butter and honey and doused with rose, lemon and cardamom syrup.

Cook ModeToggle to keep screen awake

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Total Time1 hour hr

Course: Afternoon Tea, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: Egyptian

Keyword: cake, entertaining, rose, semolina, traybake, yoghurt

Servings: 12 pieces

Calories: 155kcal

Author: Choclette @ Tin and Thyme

Ingredients

Cake

• 75 g unsalted butter
• 150 g semolina
• 1 tbsp honey
• 250 g natural yoghurt (I used kefir)
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 12 blanched almonds

Syrup

• 150 ml water
• 100 g sugar
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 cardamom pods
• 1 whole clove
• 1 lemon juice and zest
• 2 tsp rose water or 2 drops of rose extract

Metric – US Customary

Instructions

Cake

• Simmer the butter in a large saucepan for a few minutes until it starts to turn brown (be careful not to actually burn it).
  75 g unsalted butter
• Add the semolina and continue to cook over a low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.
  150 g semolina
• Stir in the honey.
  1 tbsp honey
• Remove from the heat and stir in the yoghurt, followed by the bicarbonate of soda.
  250 g natural yoghurt, 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• Scrape into an 20 cm (8") square lined tin or lightly greased silicone mould and leave for an hour or more to firm up.
• Cut into diamonds and place an almond on the top of each piece.
  12 blanched almonds
• Bake at 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4) for about 30 minutes, when the top should be nicely golden, but not burnt.

Syrup

• Whilst the cake is resting, dissolve the sugar and honey in the water over a low heat.
  150 ml water, 100 g sugar, 1 tbsp honey
• Add the cardamom, clove and finely grated lemon zest. Let simmer for about 10-15 minutes or until the syrup has thickened.
  2 cardamom pods, 1 whole clove
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.
• Add the lemon juice and rose water, give a good stir and pour over the hot cake.
  2 tsp rose water
• Leave in the tin to cool and the cake will soak up all of the syrup.
• Once cool, cut into diamond shapes or 12 squares.

Notes

It’s really worth persisting with the first stage of browning the butter as it adds lovely nutty notes to the cake and gives it a nice colour.

Excellent served with clotted cream.

Please note: calories and other nutritional information are per serving. They’re approximate and will depend on serving size and exact ingredients used. Please refer to my nutrition disclaimer for further information.

Nutrition Estimate

Calories: 155kcal | Carbohydrates: 23g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 16mg | Sodium: 103mg | Potassium: 82mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 12g | Vitamin A: 179IU | Vitamin C: 5mg | Calcium: 36mg | Iron: 1mg

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This is a commissioned post. I was not expected to write a positive review and all opinions are, as always, my own. Thank you for supporting the brands and organisations that help to keep Tin and Thyme blithe and blogging.