Orange-Almond Basbousa Cake without added sugar

Serving amount: 12 portions

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Baking time: 30 minutes + 20 Minutes

Cooling time: 1 hour

Basbousa is a sweet, sugar syrup-soaked semolina cake that originated in Egypt, and now very common throughout the middle east. In our version we replaced the sugar syrup with fresh orange juice, keeping the consistency still moist as the origin, but without added sugar

Ingredients

500 ml water
400 g date paste or stoned Medjool dates
500 g hard wheat semolina or spelt semolina
ca. 3 oranges
150 g blanched ground almonds
150 g olive oil
20 g orange zest
8 g baking powder
5 g cinnamon powder
2 g grated nutmeg
2 g cloves powder

++ Lovers of Marzipan/almond flavor can add one gram of Mahleb spice (a spice made from cherry seeds) or almond extract.

Preparation

Mix date paste, oil and water to get a soft, creamy mass.
Mix all dry ingredients with the rasped orange zest in a separate bowl.
Then fold in the date paste, and stir all ingredients to a cake dough.
Fill the cake dough in a greaseed bundt pan and bake in the pre-heated oven for at least 30 min (180°C).
Reduce the heat to 140°C and let the cake dry for another 20-30 min.
Test with a wooden skewer if the cake is thouroughly baked.
Squeeze the oranges and spread the orange juice over the still warm cake in the baking pan. The juice will get soaked after a short while.
As soon as the juice is soaked in, turn the pan carefully in order to take the cake out of its form.