Orange Semolina Cake with Orange or Marmalade Glaze
Orange Semolina Cake with Orange or Marmalade Glaze is a modern Fusion recipe for a classic North African-influenced orange-flavoured semolina cake, which can be served as a lucky meal over New Year. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Fusion version of: Orange Semolina Cake with Orange or Marmalade Glaze.
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Semolina cakes are typical of North African and Greek cookery. I love the orangey hit and the crunchy topping due to the semolina. I prefer fine semolina for this cake which is made without eggs. Personally, I bake this in a springform cake tin which gives a light and crisp texture that bakes golden brown. However, you can cook in a sponge tin or loaf tin if you would prefer. The batter ends up quite muffin-like and as this cake is great with a morning mug of coffee. I will need to try out a muffin variant really soon.
Now, I always have semolina flour on hand, as I use this to dust my pizza pans… but this often means that I have lots of ageing semolina flour. This cake is an excellent (and tasty) way of using this up in a way that both myself and my wife enjoy. Next time I will try the marmalade variant (see the end of the recipe) for the topping.
It’s a little-known fact, but you can replace the eggs in many cake recipes with Greek yoghurt. This will bind the cake ingredients together, though the cake may not rise quite as well as if you were using eggs. Still, it’s a nice trick to know and allows you to bake even if you’ve run out of eggs.
If desired you can add a ceramic or metal charm to the batter. This cake can then be served as a 'lucky' cake for New Year's day.
Ingredients:
For the Cake:
150g (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted
200g (1 ½ cups) fine semolina
200g (1 cup) golden caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp finely-grated orange zest
1 tsp ground cardamom (or substitute nutmeg or cinnamon)
½ tsp sea salt
250ml (1 cup) plain whole-milk Greek yoghurt
180ml (3/4 cup) whole milk
For the Glaze:
1 Indian bay leaf (or 2 bay leaves)
65g (1/2 cup) golden caster sugar
Pinch of sea salt
Juice of ½ orange (I used a Mineola for flavour but blood oranges are also good)
Method:
Begin with the cake. Sift together the dry ingredients into one bowl and the milk and yoghurt into another bowl. Whisk together the milk and yoghurt then add the mix to the dry ingredient, followed by the melted butter. Whisk until well combined then turn into your greased cake tin. Transfer to an oven pre-heated to 170°C and bake for around 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted cleanly in the centre of a wire cake emerges cleanly. Transfer the cake to a wire rack to cool.
In the meantime, combine all the ingredients for the syrup in a small pan. Bring to a simmer and heat until melted. Remove the bayleaf, then pour syrup over the top of the cake. Allow the syrup to cool and soak into the cake then remove the sides of the pan, loosen from the base and transfer to a serving plate.
This is best served the same day, but will last for up to two days if stored in an air-tight container. The following day I like to warm slices of the cake for about 30 seconds in the microwave, then serve warm for breakfast with a generous dollop of Greek yoghurt and a few orange segments.
As an alternate, you can melt 4 tbsp of your favourite marmalade with 4 tbsp orange or lemon juice to use as a glaze.
