← Nouns Cooking · Lebanese & Turkish

Ingredients

• 400 g Sugar
• 500 ml Water
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 4 Eggs
• 150 g Sugar
• 200 g thick plain yogurt
• 100 ml sunflower oil
• 1 lemon, zest only
• 200 g fine semolina
• 100 g Plain (all-purpose) flour
• 2 tsp Baking powder
• 2 tbsp desiccated coconut or chopped pistachios (optional)

Method

1. Make the syrup first: simmer the sugar and water for 10 min, add the lemon juice and leave to cool completely.
2. Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a 20 x 30 cm baking tin.
3. Whisk the eggs and sugar for 4–5 min until pale and thick. Whisk in the yogurt, oil and lemon zest, then fold in the semolina, flour and baking powder until just combined.
4. Pour into the tin and bake for 30–35 min, until golden and a skewer comes out clean.
5. As soon as the cake comes out, cut it into diamonds in the tin and slowly ladle the cool syrup all over it. Leave to soak for 1 hour, or longer.
6. Serve at room temperature, sprinkled with coconut or pistachios, perhaps with a spoon of thick cream.

Tips

• Hot cake and cool syrup (or the other way round) is the rule; if both are hot, the cake turns soggy.
• Contains wheat (semolina and flour) and eggs.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Turkey's For Life Ozlem's Turkish Table Unicorns in the Kitchen