my favourite Arabic delight

The semester has ended and now it's examination time. It would mean, no lectures. And most of the time is occupied with marking and other administration work.

One of my international students comes to see me every time he can. Just to cakap - cakap and perhaps seek advice. So one day, he brought a nice Arabic delight called Basboosa. I fell in love with it the minute I tasted it. Sedapnyer bendalah nih~

So today, I asked him to buy for me more. Cause during the weekend, in my mind was only Basboosa. And I googled the recipe. Ingat nak buat lah satu hari ;)

Ingredients

For the syrup

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 medium lime, zest of
• 1 medium lemon, zest of
• 1 teaspoon rose essence or rose water
• 3 teaspoons honey

For the cake

• 3 cups semolina cream of wheat
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 medium lemon or lime, which the peel was used for the syrup
• 1 cup soured milk, squeeze the lime or lemon, into 1 cup of milk to make this
• 16 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• whole almond, for garnishing
• unsalted pistachios, for garnishing

Directions

For the syrup:.

1. put all the ingredients together except for the rose water in a pot and bring to a boil.when it starts to boil, put in the rose water and let boil.it should look like syrup but should not be thick.don't let it reduce too much.let it sit while the cake is baking.

For the cake:.

1. while the syrup is put to boil, start the mixture of the cake.mix butter and sugar together(before doing this, make ure butter is very soft.cutting it up in small cubes always help).do not use a hand mixer or a cake mixer (this causes it to be too airy and we don't want this) but, use a fork or a potato masher.the butter and sugar does not need to be melted into each other.

2. now add the eggs and the dried ingredients to this.lastly, add in the soured milk.mix into the mixture and pour into a buttered dish.it should only be poured 1 inch in height.

3. put into oven at 325 degrees for 20 mins, then take out and cut into squares depending on the sizes you want and place back into oven for 5 - 10 mins.take out and pour sugar syrup all over the cake,making sure that the whole cake gets enough syrup.let cool and eat.

4. the pistachios can be crushed and sprinkled over entire cake and an almond goes on each square.

5. it tastes alot better the next day so this can be made a day ahead