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Basbousa With Coconut & Pineapple

A semolina cake flavoured with pineapple and coconut.

Course Dessert
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings 9 Servings
Author Samira Gupta

Ingredients

For The Basbousa

  • 1 Cup Fine Semolina Chiroti Rawa
  • 1/2 Cup Desiccated Coconut
  • 1 tsp Baking Powder
  • Pinch of Salt
  • 1/4 Cup Coconut Sugar
  • 1 Cup Pineapple Puree
  • 1/4 Cup Coconut Oil
  • 1/4 Cup Coconut Milk

For Pineapple Puree

  • 7 to 8 Fresh Pineapple Rings
  • 2 Tbsp Coconut Sugar
  • 1 Cup Water

For Pineapple Sauce

  • 1 Cup Pineapple Puree
  • 1 Tbsp Rice flour
  • 1 Tbsp Coconut Sugar

For Garnishing

  • 1/4 Cup Sugar Syrup (Water left after boiling pineapple)
  • Pineapple Sauce
  • 2 Tbsp Chopped Nuts (Almond, Pistachio)

Instructions

For Basbousa

  1. Prepare Pineapple puree and keep it aside.
  2. Grease a square baking tin of 6'' and keep it aside. You can use a round tin too.

  3. In a bowl, take fine semolina, baking powder, salt and coconut oil. Mix well so that each and every grain of semolina is rubbed with oil.

  4. Add coconut sugar and desiccated coconut.

  5. Mix in pineapple puree.
  6. Add coconut milk. You can add regular milk too. The batter will still be quite thick but that's the way it is supposed to be.
  7. Mix everything and let the batter sit for 10 to 15 minutes.
  8. After 10 minutes, start preheating the oven. Preheat it at 180 degrees.
  9. Put the batter in the greased baking tin.
  10. Dip a knife in water and make cut marks in it, either in square shape or diamond shape or any other that you may prefer.

  11. Dip the knife in water after each cut so that the batter doesn't stick to the knife.

  12. Bake for 30 minutes till the cake leaves sides and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
  13. In the last, to have the golden colour crust, use the broil function for just 2 to 3 minutes. Be careful and keep an eye constantly as the cake might get burnt quickly.
  14. Take the cake pan out and drizzle the sugar syrup. As we prefer very less sweet, so I used the water in which I boiled pineapple. It was very thin, sweet yet aromatic with pineapple flavour.
  15. Cover it and let it cool down.
  16. Once cool, cut through the premarked cuts.
  17. Drizzle pineapple sauce and sprinkle nuts.
  18. Serve as it is or with vanilla ice cream.

Pineapple Puree

  1. Peel pineapple and cut rings. No need to discard its central core which is hard and is otherwise removed.
  2. In a pressure cooker, put pineapple rings, water and coconut sugar.
  3. Pressure cook for one whistle.
  4. Put the softened pineapple pieces in the blender and form puree.
  5. Reserve the water as it will be used for soaking Basbousa.

Pineapple Sauce

  1. In a wok, take pineapple puree.
  2. Dissolve rice flour in one tablespoon water and add it to the pineapple puree. I used the same water that was left after boiling pineapple.
  3. Adjust sweetness by adding 1 tablespoon coconut sugar.
  4. Boil the mix for a minute and pineapple sauce is ready.

Recipe Notes

  1. You need fine semolina for this recipe. In case you have regular semolina then pulse it in the mixie and you will have a fine one.
  2. Ideally, Basbousa is not a very tall cake. So, bake it in 6'' or 7'' cake pan.
  3. No essence is used in this recipe. However, you may add a little pineapple essence incase your pineapple is not very aromatic.
  4. You can replace coconut milk with any other milk, be it dairy or non-dairy.
  5. The consistency of this cake batter is quite thick.
  6. You can replace coconut oil with any other oil of your choice. Even butter or ghee (clarified butter) can be used.
  7. If using coconut oil or butter or ghee then it is advised to warm the Basbousa before serving. This is because once kept in the refrigerator, these fats solidify and makes the cake hard. Slight warming put makes them soft again. Heating it in the microwave oven for 30 seconds is sufficient.
  8. Basbousa is ideally golden brown from the top. So, once the cake is baked, switch on the top rod of your oven, that is, the broil function and keep it on the top rack for just 2 or 3 minutes. Though, if not comfortable doing this, you can avoid this step.
  9. The water in which pineapple is boiled is used for soaking the cake and for making pineapple sauce.