8 to 10 people
This turmeric tea cake is so easy to make and a perfect way to welcome your guests. It is fragrant, delicious and the texture is slightly dense and crumbly with the most beautiful bright yellow colour. I love cutting this cake into cubes to really show-off the colour of the cake on my table. It has an ever so slight nutty flavour from lining the pan with tahini paste and the sprinkle of pine nuts on the top.
For thousands of years turmeric has been used in various cuisines around the world and has been celebrated for it supposed medicinal properties. It is quite a versatile spice and using it in this cake shows you just one way you can use it.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup fine semolina
- 1 cup self raising flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 300mls whole cream milk
- 1 1/4 cup caster sugar
- 150g unsalted butter melted – melt over low heat so that the butter doesn’t cook
- 1 tablespoon tahini paste
- 45g pinenuts
Method
- Pre-heat fan forced oven to 190 degrees celcius
- Line your cake tin with tahini paste (23cm round springform cake tin)
- Sift the semolina, flour, turmeric powder into a mixing bowl and mix well (sifting is optional)
- In a separate bowl add the milk and sugar and dissolve as best as you can, stirring for five minutes or until you have a thick milky syrup liquid
- pour the milk and sugar mixture over the dry ingredients and mix until well combined
- add the melted butter and mix again until combined really well, you will notice that the mixture has thickened a fair bit, this is ok, you don’t want it doughy of course but thick is ok
- Pour the cake batter into your tahini lined baking tin and level the batter so the top is as smooth as possible
- Sprinkle the pine nuts on top and pat down ever so gently
- bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until golden on the top and a skewer test comes out clean
- Once the cake has cooled cut it into slices or cubes using a sharp knife
- Serve with coffee or tea and enjoy!
- Refer to “How to make Sfouf ” video on youtube as a guide to help you if needed: click on the link below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmtS3D4Uc_0
Tips
- You can also use a brownie pan to cook this cake (27.5 x 17.5 x 3.5cm) however the cooking time may be less. Keep an eye out and as soon as it turns golden and your skewer test comes out clean, remove the cake from the oven.
- This cake is best eaten at room temperature
- Store in an airtight container and consume within 3 days
- It is best served with Arabic coffee or tea
- Due to the fragrant turmeric notes in the cake it may not be popular with very young children
- The turmeric spice really gives this cake a distinct flavour and the sugar is needed to balance out the spice so try and stick to the amount advised in the recipe
- Depending on the type of turmeric powder you use this cake can sometimes have a very light pepper tone
