desert of the Middle East.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 50 mins |
| Servings: | 16 |
| Yield: | 16 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon tahini (sesame seed paste)
- 2 cups dry farina cereal
- 1 ½ cups white sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup plain yogurt
- 1 tablespoon butter, softened
- 16 blanched almond halves
- 2 cups white sugar
- 2 cups water
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 teaspoon orange flower water (Optional)
Instructions
- Line a 9×13-inch glass baking dish with aluminum foil and generously butter the foil. Spread the tahini evenly over the bottom of the prepared pan in a thin layer.
- Mix together farina cereal with 1 1/2 cup of sugar and baking powder in a bowl. Mix in the yogurt and 1 tablespoon of softened butter gently with your hands until the dough is smooth. Spread dough out into the prepared baking dish. Pat the surface smooth. Cover the dish with foil, and allow to stand at room temperature for 2 hours. With a sharp knife, cut the dough into 16 squares; push an almond half gently into the top of each square.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
- Bake in the preheated oven until the dessert is set and the top is lightly golden brown, about 30 minutes.
- While the dessert is baking, make the syrup. Place 2 cups of sugar into a saucepan with the water, and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly to dissolve sugar. Stir in the lemon juice, and boil the syrup for 5 minutes; stir in butter and orange flower water until combined. Pour the hot syrup over the dessert as soon as it comes out of the oven. Let cool for 1 to 2 hours to let the syrup absorb before serving.
- Dry farina is commonly sold in the US under the Cream of Wheat(R) brand.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 286 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 63 g |
| Cholesterol | 5 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 4 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 85 mg |
| Sugars | 45 g |
| Fat | 3 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
All I can taste is sugar! I even did the syrup a bit different with less sugar. I made it out of one and a half cups sugar, one cup water, one teaspoon lemon juice, one teaspoon rose water, and a tiny touch of orange peel (I got this from another recipe because I knew I would like less sugar and I did not have orange flower water on hand). I had to boil the simple syrup a bit longer than stated in order to get it syrupy enough. Maybe the orange flower water would have added a different taste, but I still wouldn’t be able to eat it because the sweetness level made me feel a little sick. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t get anyone to eat it. Also, I greased my foil extremely well, but had the hardest time getting it to unstick both from the pan and the cake. The one positive was that the pieces were very attractive and the texture was good.Thanks for letting me try out a new recipe (and using up my farina and yogurt)!
This is really sweet! The next time I make it I plan to reduce the sugar, and increase the orange flower water. It did seem a little less sweet the day after I made it, so maybe you just need to let it sit a bit.
Delicious! Actually, the ingredients are not expensive at all, I found everything at a middle eastern halal market. Thank you Basboos 🙂
This is The authentic version. Loved it. Thank you for posting it on ALLRECECIPES
This dessert was so delicious, one of my friends asked me to make it for his birthday instead of cake! I used more tahini than originally called for (about 1/4 cup instead of 1 tbsp) because I had trouble getting the paste to spread far enough on the bottom of the dish, and I only used about half the syrup in the end. The dessert was deliciously nutty and had a nice moist, slightly grainy texture without being too sticky.