Basbousa – A Middle Eastern delicacy

For me a semolina cake is reminiscent of my childhood! Mom baked it often to celebrate our small  successes or on joyous occasions. What set this semolina cake apart from the flour cake was its distinctive texture as a semolina has a coarser texture than the all purpose flour. 

I wanted my daughters to have the semolina cake and decided to tweak the recipe a little bit to make it more exotic. Actually, this semolina cake is really a take on the Middle Eastern cake made with semolina called Basbousa. In fact it is found in Middle East, Balkans and North Africa under different names : in Arabic it is called as Basbousa or Basboosa or Nammoura or Hareesa, in Armenian it is Shamali, Greek and Turkish it is Revani.  Continue reading “Basbousa – A Middle Eastern delicacy”