When you order all purpose flour in a pandemic and the store has run out, the teenager bagging and delivering your groceries substitutes the first flour he/she can see. So I have a considerable amount of semolina flour, rye flour, almond flour and spelt flour to experiment with. This cake is the result of a search for a semolina cake and it is a winner. Based off this Tejal Rao recipe in the NYT– it is a dense very sweet cake. But the sweetness is not cloying, it is a sweetness of a good gulab jamun or a baklava, a pleasant delicious moreish sweetness.

The recipe is extremely simple. Preheat oven to 400F and grease a 9×13 inch baking pan

Step 1- to one cup of yogurt, add 2.5 tsp of baking soda, mix well and allow it to froth and rise. It rose up to nearly 3 cups by volume in 10 minutes.

Step 2: Mix 3 cups of semolina flour with 1.5 sticks (3/4 cup, 12 tbsp) of melted butter and 3/4 cup of sugar till there are no lumps.

Step 3: Add yogurt to flour and mix well (yes till no lumps remain). Spread in prepared pan.

Step 4: Score in diamond shapes and add a nut to each diamond- I used walnuts. Bake for 30 minutes or so. The scoring is unnecessary in my opinion. Just sprinkle the nuts on top.

Step 5: Make syrup with 2 cups of sugar and 1 cup of water and add 1tbsp of lemon juice and 1 tbsp of flavor (the recipe suggests lavender or rose water , I used vanilla)

Step 6: When cake is done (it pulls away from the sides)- pour the syrup(yes, all of it) on the cake evenly. Let cool and then cut along the pre-scored shapes.

Eat with coffee or wine