I use semolina very often as it is one of the major ingredient used in Indian cuisine. Usually it used to make savory dishes, but sometimes also used in sweets. I never tried baking with them. It is in my list as I saw Burmese semolina cake and coconut namoura. It has been there for few years still I didn’t time to make it. A few months ago, I saw this Lemon Semolina mini cakes in Sweet: Desserts from London’s Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, and decided to add it to list.
As spring is here, I thought why I don’t make lemon cake, I have already tried lemon and poppy seed cake. This one is unique in the sense that it has lemon juice, lemon zest, lemon syrup and lemon slice may be little lemon overload. It is good, it has semolina, almond meal/flour and sugar. Best part is that you can make it in a muffin pan but you need to line with parchment paper. Otherwise everything will stick to you pan. You can’t use the cupcake liner as the cake batter springs up. You also need to add lemon syrup.
I have tried Coconut Almond Raspberry cake from this cook book and this one. I didn’t change anything on this recipe expect reducing ½ tablespoon butter as I am too lazy to cut another stick for that. This is a syrup cake, I have earlier tried few syrup cakes, like orange loaf, orange ginger yogurt cake with orange syrup. which I liked.
This cake goes well with cup of coffee or tea. Also, these are mini cakes, so you can control the intake if you can. This cake is soft but at the same time it is crumbly may be because of almond meal and semolina. Eggs are good binders, but they can’t hold them, you need to add some flour if you want less crumbly cake. I made with butter as original recipe you can try with oil too. If you are a lemon lover, then give it a try you will like it. After all lemon is in its best form whether it is sweet or savory. Lemony taste will be lingering in your taste buds.
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Semolina Lemon Cakes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 18 servings 1x
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoon/113g unsalted butter softened
- 2/3 cup/130g granulated sugar
- 2 lemons one lemon for zest and juice and other lemon cut into thin 8 rounds
- 1 cup /100g almond flour/meal
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup plus 1 tbsp /70g semolina/Suji
- ½ tsp/2g baking powder
- 1/8 tsp salt
Syrup
- 1/4 cup/60 ml juice about 1 large lemon
- 1/4 cup/50g granulated sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F/180C. Line 8 cavity muffin tin with square parchment paper hanging outside the muffin tin, if you can grease you can do it. I didn’t I only place the parchment paper and carefully fill them with batter.
- Place butter, sugar and lemon zest in a bowl and mix well with handmixer, or kitchen aid stand mixer until it light and fluffy. To this add almond meal and again mix well. Then add one eggs at a time and mix well.
- To this add semolina, baking powder, salt and mix once again. Then add lemon juice and mix once again.
- Then divide the batter into muffin tin and place lemon slice on the top.
- Bake the cake for about 25-30 minutes until the sides become golden brown and when tooth pick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
- While cake is baking make the lemon syrup with sugar and lemon juice until the sugar dissolves remove from fire.
- Spoon or brush the lemon syrup on warm cake as soon it comes out of the oven.
- Enjoy with cup of tea or coffee. Make sure that cake should remain in the parchment paper until it is ready to serve.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Category: Cake
