Eggless Semolina & Coconut Basbousa/Arabian Basbousa/Arabic Coconut Semolina Cake

We are having a long weekend here, obviously i dont want to sit in front of my lappy today. But i couldnt stop myself to write a post today as i want to share my happiness with you all.Yes my article about my hometown and about Pondicherrian foods was published in today's Hindu. Few days back, Annie the journalist of The Hindu send me a mail asking whether i can write an article about my hometown, i dunno how she noticed me and my Pondicherry roots, watelse i need i told immediately yes and she send me couple of questions. Without any delay i replied her and today morning, i was surprised to know when few of my Fb friends from Chennai left private messages appreciating about the article. Then only i checked my inbox, Annie was kind enough to send me the link of the article. I was overwhelmed to see the article and the way Annie has written about me. I have to say a special thanks to her, feel so blessed, obviously she made my day. To celebrate this beautiful mention in a leading Indian newspaper, am posting a sweet today which i prepared few days back. This Arabic eggless semolina and coconut cake aka Coconut basbousa was in my to do list since ages, finally i prepared them at home. 

With simple ingredients, these eggless Semolina and coconut basbousa can be prepared without any hassle, this cake came out excellent and dangerously addictive. Trust me if you are coconut lover like me, you wont just stop with a slice. Baked semolina and coconut mixture when soaked with a simple sugar syrup makes this fabulous cake.This cake will be very super moist coz of the sugar syrup and this makes the difference from other semolina cakes.This month's Home Baker's Challenge, a monthly baking event where we bake varieties of baked goodies, the host of this month is Nupur, she suggested Arabic desserts for this month's challenge.From the couple of sweets she gave,i picked this basbousa eventhough i have prepared and blogged about it. Since this basbousa goes for coconut, i was tempted to give a try and baked them this time with this coconut-semolina combination. 

2cups Semolina/roasted rava (medium quality works wonder)
30grms Melted butter
1/4cup Dessicated Coconut
3tbsp Sugar syrup (recipe follows)
1tsp Vanilla extract
1/2cup Sugar
1cup Milk
1tsp Baking powder
Tahini (sesame paste) or butter (for greasing the mould)
Few blanched Almond nuts

For Syrup:
2cups Sugar
1tsp Rose water
1tsp Lemon juice
1tsp Orange blossom water
1/2cup Water

Prepared the sugar syrup by combining sugar and water, bring it to boil, add the lemon juice and boil for few minutes.

Finally add the orange blossom water and rose water, put off the stove and keep aside.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Add the baking powder,dessicated coconut to the semolina and keep aside.

Beat together the melted butter,sugar,milk,sugar syrup in a another bowl, gradually add the semolina  and make a thick cake batter.

Pour this batter in a greased pan, arrange the almond nuts over the batter.

Arrange the batter in the middle rack of the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the top turns golden brown.

Take off the basboosa from the oven, immediately pour the syrup over the cake, let the cake absorbs completely the syrup.

Cut the semolina cake either as diamond or as square.

Enjoy warm, with icecream or with mint tea..

Notes:
If you are using large semolina, its better to keep the batter overnite in fridge, since i used medium sized semolina, i kept my batter for two hours in room temperature and baked them.

You may think the sugar syrup goes almost for two cups of syrup,but trust me once the syrup is well absorbed by the cake, they arent that much sweet.