Lebanese Farina Cake A Special Treat
As our church is having it's Taste of Lebanon this weekend, the parishioners are being asked to prepare dishes to be sold. My wife was asked to make the farina cake, harisat-el-louz. ris-to-laws.
The farina most often eaten at breakfast on a cold morning is something with which many have a great deal of familiarity. It is a coarser grain designed to stick to the ribs. With a finer grained farina, the Lebanese make a cake, which is considered a true delicacy. The recipe below offers a couple of alternatives.
Ingredients
2 cups of farina
1 cup of the breakfast farina, (boxed)
1 cup of finer also called semolina
1 stick of unsalted margarine/butter
3 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
1 cup milk
2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 cup simple syrup
Melt butter in a saucepan. Combine farina, sugar and melted butter in a bowl. Mix well for about 2 minutes and let sit for 5 minutes to cool before adding the rest of the ingredients.
Syrup: 2 cups of sugar to 1 cup of water. Boil and add a teaspoon of lemon juice.
Grease bottom of a 9 x 13 pan with butter/margarine.
Mix 2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder into the farina mixture bowl. Then add the milk. Pour into the pan before it thickens too much and spread evenly to be level. Let it sit for about 5 minutes before cutting into squares and sprinkle either pine nuts (pignoli seeds) or almonds atop each square. Bake in a preheated oven (350o ) for 40 minutes or until a golden brown.
While the cake is hot, cut into squares with a serrated edged knife and pour the hot syrup over the cake. The farina cake can be enjoyed hot when cooled. Add additional syrup to individual tastes.
Second option, as shown would be to add a layer of ricotta cheese to the center.
When the farina mixture is done, add a layer of the mixture to the bottom of the pan, uniformly and think enough to support the cheese.
Layer the ricotta, typically about 1/4" thick or thicker if one likes the cheese and uniformly in the pan.
Once done, add the farina topping and finish as in the simpler version. Cook at almost the same temp until the golden-brown color.
This post is offered just because of life events for the cookbook Challenge for June on ActiveRain.
Lebanese Farina Cake A Special Treat
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