In the spirit of COVID-19 baking, I am using up what ingredients I have on hand. I noticed an almost full bag of semolina flour, bought for Moroccan Semolina and Almond Cookies , and wondered what I could bake with it. I came across this recipe for a semolina cake and I was intrigued. I like orange, almond, cream cheese and Greek yogurt so I thought this a good choice for my birthday cake. I made one deviation from the recipe, I rubbed the orange zest into the sugar before adding the eggs, I think this makes for more orange flavor and I used the zest of one whole orange. I used 9-inch cake pans as that is what I had and baked them for 25 minutes which seemed perfect.

Semolina is quite a different flour and this recipe was going to be different from regular cakes. I was looking for something different and I sure got it with this cake. What I loved best was the frosting, I have never made a cream cheese and yogurt frosting before and it was the star of the cake. The orange flavor came through and I am glad I put the zest of one whole orange but it could have used more orange flavor maybe in the frosting. The cake was unexpectedly dry, with one cup of Greek yogurt, half a cup of olive oil, and three eggs, I thought there would be enough moisture. The next day the cake was more moist so maybe this is a serve it the next day kind of recipe. I have made in the past Semolina, Coconut and Marmalade Cake from Jerusalem A Cookbook from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. There were many similarities to the two recipes but Jerusalem’s recipe included a soaking syrup which helps with the moisture factor and also used all-purpose flour which makes a more tender crumb. There is much to like about this cake, with a few tweeks, so if you are looking for something truly different head over to Bob’s Red Mill website for the recipe.