Semolina Cake In Lemon Syrup

I baked a cake to mark this once in a life time occurrence: 12-12-12.   Burcu of Almost Turkish Recipes posted a delicious semolina sponge cake recipe.  It is really delicious.  The sweetness of the cake is perfect to celebrate this special day.  I just tweaked a little for more tartness and decreased the amount of sugar in the syrup to suit my taste.  Burcu has lemon zest as optional, but I highly recommend that you include it in the recipe because it gives the cake a good zing and a small little burst as you savor every morsel. Enjoy this cake with a nice cup of mellow flavor tea.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 111 grams      2/3 cup semolina flour
• 41 grams       1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, separated
• 150 grams     2/3 cup sugar
• 14 grams       1 tablespoon finely chopped organic lemon rinds

For the syrup:

• 591 milliliters                 2 1/2 cups water
• 400 to 500 grams         2 to 2 1/2 cups caster sugar
• 90 to 100 milliliters     6 to 7 tablespoons organic lemon juice
• 28 grams                        2 tablespoons finely chopped organic lemon rinds

Preheat the oven to 350 ℉ or  176 ℃

Grease a 9 inch diameter baking pan with cooking spray or small pat of butter.  Set aside

To Make the cake:

1. Add  flour, semolina flour, and lemon rinds in a mixing bowl. Stir to combine and set aside.

2.  In a mixing bowl, whisk by hand or in a mixer, cream the egg yolks and sugar together until light and creamy.

3. Using a spatula, stir in the orange rinds, semolina, and flour together until blended.

4. In a mixing bowl, add in the egg whites.  Using a whisk, beat the egg whites by hand or with electric mixer until the egg whites is firm foam but not over beaten. Serious Eats has a step-by-step to this technique.

5. Add 1/3 of the beaten egg whites into the egg yolk and flour mixture. Using a spatula, gently fold them together (it does not need to be well mix).  Gently fold in another 1/3.  Now fold in the remaining beaten egg whites and again gently fold in to combine, but not over mixing that you will lose all the air bubbles from the batter which is important in making a fluffy cake.

6. Gently pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and bake it for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

While the cake is baking, gather ingredients together to make the lemon syrup.

To make the syrup:
In a small sauce pan, add in the sugar, water, lemon juice and lemon rinds.  Bring it to a boil then let it simmer over low heat, and stir occasionally ( be careful not to get syrup splatter on you) for 25 to 30 minutes until it becomes thick syrup. set aside.

When the cake is done, remove from oven and let it cool down  a little.  Leaving the cake in the pan, cut the cake into diamond-shaped pieces using a serrated knife.  Pour the syrup evenly over the cake.  Make sure that it gets into all the crevices to soak the cake evenly.

Serve it with a nice cup of tea.

Enjoy and have a magical 12-12-12 day!

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