Lemon passion fruit semolina cake

I know it is bit late but I think it is never to late for a happy new year! I hope this year will be all that you want it to be.

Looking back at last year I can say that it’s been a very good one. Now that I’ve think about it, I don’t think I had any bad year at all. Or maybe I’m just good at ignoring any bad past.

Anyway it’s been really good taking a break from blogging and focusing more on getting healthier. I’ve stopped running since the days are getting shorter and the nights longer, but as soon as the temperature goes up to somewhat decent running temperature; I will be picking up where I left. Still have that wedding to go to in June...So far I haven’t gain any kilos, but I’m afraid I can’t hold that off for long.

I checked my pantry and notice that I had a bag of Semolina that was about to expire. I looked everywhere for a recipe and then I remembered that my Greek neighbor use to make semolina cake. All the recipes I saw were using 6 or more eggs. Somehow I just can’t justify using 6 eggs just for 1 cake. So lucky I found this recipe and decided to tweak it a little: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/20192/lemon+semolina+cake

For the cake I used:

-       130 grams of unsalted room temperature butter

-       ½ cup of sugar

-       Zest of one lime

-       2 eggs

-       ½ cup of milk

-       2/3 cups of all purpose flour

-       1 ½ cups of semolina

-       1 teaspoon of baking soda

-       ½ teaspoon of salt

Since I had a lot of passion fruits I decided to use them in the syrup.

-       ¼ cup of passion fruit juice

-       1 cup of water

-       1 cup of sugar

-       Juice of 1 small lime

-       Pinch of salt

I started with creaming the sugar, the butter and the lime zest. 

Then one by one I added the eggs. After the eggs were incorporated I added the milk.

I preheated the oven on 180C degrees.

In a different bowl I mixed the flour, semolina, baking soda and the salt. After the milk was mixed in I added the dry ingredients. I used a spatula to mix it a bit first and then with the hand mixer I made sure everything was mixed well.

I use a bit of butter to grease a square baking tin and added the mixture. I made sure it was somewhat flat on top.

The cake was in the oven for about 40 minutes.

This gives me more than enough time to make the syrup. I cut about 7-8 passion fruits in half and scooped out the seeds. It went into a pot and on the fire so it can boil for a little. After that I drained the seeds and poured 1 cup of water on top. I made sure I extracted as much flavor as I could. Then the pot went back on the fire. After it boiled it added 1 cup of sugar, a pinch of salt and the juice of 1 small lemon. I let the syrup boil for about 8 minutes.

By now the cake is done and has a really nice golden crust. To make sure the syrup can go through the whole cake I punched some holes. Then I poured about 2/3 of the hot syrup on the hot cake.

After it cooled for a bit I cut the cake in squares. I can see that the cake has not sucked up all the syrup so lucky I had some left so I could pour a bit more on top.

It was a very nice and easy cake to make. The only thing I would do different is I would double the amount of syrup so I can let the cake soak in more and maybe shorten the oven time to 30 minutes. This time I only poured it on top so the cake wasn't wet enough for me. Still a very good first try.