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The April issue of Bon Appetit featured mini lemon-semolina syrup cakes, a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi’s next cookbook, a dessert one, which is still in its recipe-testing phase. While I am not into mini anything right now — the less greasing/pan preparing the better — and while I don’t care for extra steps like syrup making (so lazy!), the ingredients for the cake looked so good: one half cup of semolina flour and lots of almond flour, butter, sugar, and fresh lemon juice.
I finally got around to making the cake last weekend using a loaf pan instead of a muffin tin, and, for whatever reason, replacing the butter with oil. Oh my. The cake was so incredibly moist — I know! Sorry. But there’s no other word, is there? — and delicious and perfectly sweet and lemony. For me, it doesn’t get much better than a lemon loaf cake, and this one is about as ideal as can be.
This past week I made it two more times, once with grapeseed oil and once with butter. I had no doubt I would prefer the cake made with oil — I often do — but with this one, I’m not sure. The differences are subtle. I ate and I ate and I ate hoping to discern a decisive winner until I discovered the good news: you can’t go wrong either way.
These are my observations: when the cake is made with oil, it will taste — wait for it — a little oily. When the cake is made with butter, it will taste richer and have a denser, more marzipan-like texture. Making the cake with oil allows you to whisk by hand, which is a little easier — no need to soften butter, no need to whip until light and fluffy. In a taste test with friends, more people preferred the cake made with oil, but for me, the one with butter has a slight edge.
Butter or oil? Something to ponder this weekend as you scour your cupboard for that half cup of semolina flour, because you know it’s there and what better way to use it up?
These are the dry ingredients: almond flour, semolina flour, baking powder, and salt:
This is what the batter looks like when made with butter:
When made with oil:
The cake with the darker crust was made with oil:
This is the cake made with butter:
This one below is made with olive oil. Above left is made with grapeseed oil.
Ottolenghi’s Lemon-Semolina Almond Cake
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 60 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf
Print Recipe
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Adapted from this Bon Appetit recipe
Check out the original recipe, which includes the addition of a syrup, but I don’t think the syrup is necessary — the cake is so delicious as is.
A few notes:
I increased the baking powder by ¼ teaspoon because I used a loaf pan. This might not be necessary if you use a muffin tin, as suggested in the original recipe. As noted in the post, I’ve made the cake three times now, once with butter, once with olive oil, and once with grapeseed oil. The difference is subtle: the oil makes the cake a little moister, the butter a little richer. Olive oil was preferable to grapeseed flavor-wise. In a tasted test with friends, the cake made with oil was preferable.
Ingredients
- 1½ cups (135 g) almond flour or almond meal
- ½ cup (79 g) semolina flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, or ¾ cup olive oil
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (243 g) sugar
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- 3 large eggs, beaten to blend
- 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a loaf pan and line with parchment paper. Whisk together the almond flour, semolina flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl to combine.
- Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat butter, sugar, and lemon zest until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With motor running, gradually add eggs and beat until glossy, about 1 minute. Add dry ingredients and lemon juice and beat to combine, about 1 minute. (If you are using oil, simple whisk oil and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating to incorporate, followed by dry ingredients and lemon juice.)
- Transfer batter to prepared loaf pan, and bake until golden brown, 50 to 60 minutes. Lightly press the top of the cake to test — it should feel lightly springy when done. Let cool 20 minutes or so in pan before removing and transferring to a cooling rack.
- Category: Quick Bread
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Middle Eastern
Keywords: ottolenghi, lemon, semolina, tea cake, brunch
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Julia says
Alexandra, I would love to make this cake, but my mom has celiac disease so I can’t use the semolina flour. What substitute could you recommend? Maybe fine Polenta?
alexandra says
Hi Julia,
Gluten-free baking is so tricky … I don’t have enough experience to recommend anything definitely, but I worry that polenta alone won’t give the cake enough structure. At the same time, it is only 1/2 cup, so perhaps a simple switch with something like polenta or more almond flour may work. The safest move would be to use a gf flour mix like King Arthur’s, which is readily available and affordable. I love Cup4Cup, but it’s pricey and probably not worth it for a small baking project.
Julia says
I will give it a try using one of your suggestions. Maybe it won’t be as good as the original, but I’m sure it will still taste great:-) Thanks so much Alexandra!!
Edouard Massih says
Love that you tested out the different fats – I am going to try it with olive oil! Cheers
★★★★★
alexandra says
🙂 🙂 🙂
lv2ck94 says
The lemon-semolina cake looks incredible! What kind of semolina flour did you use?
alexandra says
I use Bob’s Red Mill semolina. Love it!
Nina says
Hi there, how long should I whisk the oil and sugar? Cake looks amazing!
Shelly says
This cake is incredible! I’ve made this loaf over 20 times. I have friends and family members asking for the recipe.
★★★★★
Zenrookh says
Made this cake today, with half butter and half olive oil, it’s super moist and lovely.
★★★★★
alexandra says
Yay!! So happy to hear this. Love this one, too.
Kelly says
Yes! I was thinking just that!
Barb says
I wonder if you can use all-purpose flour instead of the almond flour/meal?
Barb says
I wonder whether you can use all-purpose flour instead of almond flour/meal?
alexandra says
Absolutely!
giuliana says
I made this (with olive oil) for Rosh Hashanah last fall using orange zest and lining the bottom of a cake pan with poached Italian prune plum halves (you could also use store bought prunes I suppose). It was splendid!
★★★★★
alexandra says
Wonderful to hear this, Giuliana!
Querino deFreitas says
My cousin in-law is from Cyprus, and a v.good cook she is too.Her semolina cake differs from your recipe, of course nothing is measured,and the cake comes out the oven perfectly done and tasting ,,,tasty..I will try yours because I like baking with almond flour or ground almonds, but I think I will do it differently and do a syrup like my cousin-in-law did all those years ago…Sincerely Querino….
alexandra says
Oh yum! A syrup sounds delicious.
Margit Richert says
I made this the other day with no expectations really. I was a bit bored and had all the ingredients at hand. Imagine my shock when my husband and the neighbour’s children polished off the whole loaf without me having the chance to sample it. And they were raving about it, So I’m going to make it tonight once more, with butter, being a scandi. I hope I get to try it too, this time. 🙂 Thank you so much for an obviously fabulous recipe.
★★★★★
alexandra says
Oh my goodness, hilarious! I love it. Hope you get to taste it next time around 🙂 🙂 🙂
ursula says
This cake was divine! Making two instead of a birthday cake for my family. The only issue I had was that the cake got very dark and tasted a little burnt. I liked the smoky flavor but will keep in the oven 5 minutes less this time. I let it bake for 50 minutes the first time and I can’t recall for sure but I may have used a glass pan instead of tin. Love this recipe!
★★★★
alexandra says
So happy to hear this, Ursula (apart from the burnt flavor or course :)). Nice call on baking it for less time next time … I hope that works out for you!
Paige says
Any thoughts on making this with coconut sugar instead of cane sugar?
Ros says
This cake is delicious! I made it with macadamia oil and I also made the syrup to go with it. It was fabulously lemony and had a beautiful texture. My only issue is that it got very dark on the top. I’ve had the same problem with Persian Love Cake, which also uses semolina, so thinking maybe it’s the semolina? However, it tasted amazing and my family ate the whole cake in one sitting! Will definitely make again. Any thoughts on how to avoid the burning on top?
★★★★★
alexandra says
So happy to hear this, Ros! I’m wondering if you could simply lower your oven temperature to 325ºF and see how it bakes at a lower temperature? Do you have an oven thermometer? It’s possible your oven runs a little hot. But you can see from my photos that the top of the cake does darken considerably.
Julie says
Utterly delicious!!!
alexandra says
Yay! So happy to hear this, Julie!
Mrs. p says
HELP! What size loaf pan. It makes a difference! How is this not included?
alexandra says
I use an 8.5 x 4.5 inch pan. 9×5-inch will work too!
Emily says
Gosh, I feel so conflicted about this one. I made the version with melted butter and otherwise followed the recipe exactly. I adored the semolina texture, the faint hint of almond, and the beautiful lemony flavor if this cake, but my partner and I both found it overwhelmingly buttery. And I love butter, so I didn’t even know I had a butter threshold 🙂 From comparing our cake to the photos posted here, I believe that’s just how it’s supposed to be: a dense, almost unctuous slice. But it left us feeling a bit greasy and heavy. Given how much I love the almond-semolina-lemon combination, I may tinker with this recipe a bit to see if I can cut back the butter at all. Tinkering with an Ottolenghi recipe seems like a sacrilege, and cutting back on the butter goes against all my baking instincts! But I could see this one becoming a long-time favorite if I get it right, so I’ll give it a try and report back if I have any success.
One last thing – I also did not bother with the syrup. I found it plenty sweet, and moist, and lemony without.
★★★★
alexandra says
Hi Emily, This is such the kind of comment I am so grateful and appreciate of — thoughtful and honest. I love that you are willing to give this another shot with modifications to make it suit your tastes and preferences. Please keep me posted! I am a firm believer in tinkering with recipes, and I am constantly changing my methods/recipes as time goes on. Happy baking!
Emily says
Wow, thanks for responding! I just made this cake again –this time using 1 stick of butter and 1/4 cup of whole milk yogurt. And it came just the way I’d hoped! Slightly airier but still rich, although with this change I think it would benefit from the lemon syrup. This one’s definitely going in the permanent rotation 🙂
★★★★★
alexandra says
Oh yay! Wonderful to hear this, Emily 😍😍😍 I love a cake with yogurt.