Semolina Orange Cake With Bay Leaf Syrup

Semolina Orange Cake With Bay Leaf Syrup – Delicious Semolina Cake baked with Orange zest and infused with Bay Leaf syrup!

Christmas season is here! It’s the season of the year where everyone bakes and the house smells delicious with flavors of Cinnamon, butter, Orange, vanilla etc. Baking is a therapy and I enjoy baking goodies just for unwinding myself. I love gazing through magazines and every time, I would promise myself to bake some of the featured ones but eventually, I end up failing in the attempt. But when I happened to see this Semolina cake in the Bon Appetit, I couldn’t stop myself from falling for it. I have tried baking cakes with semolina and thought this would be an interesting experiment. Anything with oranges smells and tastes divine. This cake is no exception to that fact.

The entire house was filled with the aroma of fresh oranges and bay leaf syrup. More than the baked cakes, I thoroughly enjoyed the process of baking it as it sounded and smelled delicious. The cake, unlike the usual cake, was crunchy on the top and moist in the bottom with the delicate middle layer. I prefer to use fine coarse semolina helps you to retain a crunchy layer, unlike the fine semolina flour. One cannot stop their indulgence of this orange cake and can’t resist its soothing fruity aroma.

Semolina baked with orange zest and infused with citrus bay leaf syrup – doesn’t that sound interesting?

Now, over to the recipe

Ingredients:

Syrup:

2 Bay Leaves
½ cup Sugar
½ cup Water
2 teaspoon Fresh lemon Juice
Pinch of Salt

Cake:

¾ Cup Unsalted butter melted at room temperature
1 ½ Cup Coarse Semolina
1 Cup Sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
1 teaspoon cardamom powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
¾ cup Whole milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
2 oranges

Method:

Syrup:

Let’s start by preparing the syrup
In a small pot, add bay leaves, sugar salt, and water. Bring it to boil over a low flame, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves in the water.
Switch off the flame and remove the syrup from the heat.
Add lemon juice and mix them well
Pluck out the bay leaves from the syrup and allow it to cool

Cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line the cake pan with butter and set it aside
In a large bowl, add semolina, sugar, cardamom, orange zest and baking powder. Whisk them well
In another bowl, add yogurt, milk and vanilla extract. Mix them well.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients in the bowl slowly and combine them evenly
Now, mix in the melted butter to the batter
Gently fold in the batter to the buttered pan
Bake the semolina cake for about 55 – 65 minutes until the top layer becomes golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. I baked for about 62 minutes and removed it from the oven when the top layer turned yellowish.
Allow the cake to cool down in the pan for 10-15 minutes
Gently remove the cake from the pan to the wire rack and allow it to cool down.
Poke holes all over the cake using a fork and gradually pour the bay leaf syrup all over the cake.
Let it soak for about an hour.
Slice oranges into thin discs. If you want, you can remove the skin and the white pith.
Soak the oranges slices in the remaining bay leaf syrup.
Serve Semolina cake warmly with bay leaf infused orange slices on the sides.

The cake can be baked 2 days ahead. The addition of bay leaf syrup will help to retain the moisture in the cake. Slice the cakes and store them in an airtight container.

Warm the cake for 10 seconds and add bay leaf syrup to the loaf at the time of serving.