Sfouf- Lebanese Tea Cake with Semolina

By Alka Jena @alka_jena
Lebanese cuisine is very famous for it’s variety of sweets. These sweets are heavily laded with sugar, cheese and lots and lots of butter. One dessert stands out for it’s sweet and melt in the mouth texture is the Sfouf . This is a famous Lebanese dessert which is characterized by it's intense yellow color due to the use of turmeric, considered to be this year's superfood. It is one of the simplest form of cake where semolina, flour, oil, aniseed , turmeric and sugar are mixed and garnished with blanched pine nuts or almondsbefore baking in the oven.This Tea Cake is called Sfouf which in Arabic mean rows. So this cake is traditionally cut into squares or diamonds shape. This Turmeric cake believe it or not, is one of the simplest, most delicious cakes I’ve ever had is a perfect tea-time cake with goodness of turmeric. Turmeric is the quintessential spice in everyone’s kitchen essential is actually a relative of ginger and is one of the healthiest food to add color to our home cooked food. Cuisine: LebaneseRecipe Source: HerePreparation Time:20 minutesBaking time: 40 minutesServes:12 piecesIngredients:Dry Mixture
  • 1 3/4 cup Fine Semolina
  • 1 1/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
  • ¾ cup Ghee / Oil 
  • 1 tsp Turmeric powder
  • 1 tsp Ground Anise Seed
  • 1/4  tsp salt
  • 1 ½ tsp Baking Powder
  • ½ tsp ground green cardamom
  • 12 nos of Blanched Almonds or pinenuts
  • 1 tsp white sesame seeds
Wet Mixture
  • 1 ½ cup Whole Milk
  • 1 1/4 cup Sugar 
  • 1 tsp orange essence
Let's Learn How to prepare this Cake:
  • Pre Heat oven to 180 degree C.
  • Place the almonds in a bowl with warm water. After 10 minutes, peel the almonds and keep aside.
  • In a pan warm the milk and remove from heat and add the sugar and whisk together until the sugar dissolves. Add the orange essence to it and keep aside.
  • In a large bowl, combine the semolina, all-purpose flour, ground Aniseed, cardamom powder, salt, and turmeric powder well. Now add the ghee to it and mix properly, your mixture should resemble like fine crumbs. Set it aside.
  • Now pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well so that no lumps remain and little air is pumped into the mixture. Do not over mix.
  • Pour the mixture into a well-greased cake pan. Lightly mark the pan into rows so that you have 12 pieces of cake. Place one almond in the center of each square and sprinkle the white sesame seeds on top.
  • Bake the cake at 180 degree for 35 to 40 minutes or till a fork comes out clean if inserted. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes . Cut into 12 pieces and serve warm with some Tea.
  • You can store this in an airtight container for about 1 week. Warm before serving as it tends to become dry when cools.