Revani: Semolina Cake in Syrup

Revani is one of the simplest syrup-soaked desserts in the Turkish repertoire — a semolina cake that drinks up a lemon syrup and turns dense and moist.

Everyone knows it and almost everyone makes it. The only thing that goes wrong is the temperature of the syrup, and that is worth getting right.

Serves 12

Ingredients

For the cake

3 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup sunflower oil
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup semolina
1 cup yogurt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the syrup

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups water
Juice of 1/2 lemon

To finish

Shredded coconut

Method

Make the syrup first

Put the sugar and water in a pot and bring to a boil.

Simmer for 10 to 12 minutes, until slightly thickened. It should coat a spoon lightly — no thicker. Syrup boiled too long turns to caramel in the pan and to sugar crystals in the cake.

Add the lemon juice toward the end. The acid stops the sugar crystallizing as it cools.

Take it off the heat and let it cool completely.

Make the cake

Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease a baking dish.

Beat the eggs and sugar with a mixer until pale and thick.

Add the oil, yogurt and semolina and keep beating.

Fold in the flour, baking powder and vanilla until just combined. Stop as soon as it comes together — overmixed batter makes a tough cake.

Pour into the prepared dish and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden and a skewer comes out clean.

The part that matters

Cool syrup onto hot cake. This is the rule for every syrup dessert in Turkish cooking and it works in one direction only.

The cake must come straight from the oven, still hot, and the syrup must be completely cold. Hot cake has open, expanded pores that pull the syrup in; as it cools it contracts and holds it.

Pour it the other way round — warm syrup onto cooled cake — and the syrup sits on the surface and slides off. You end up with a wet top and a dry middle.

So: as soon as the cake comes out of the oven, score it into diamonds or squares while it is still in the dish, then ladle the cold syrup evenly over it, a spoonful at a time, giving it a moment to absorb between additions.

Rest and serve

Leave it at room temperature until it has absorbed all the syrup — at least 2 hours, ideally 4.

Do not refrigerate it. Cold turns the semolina grainy and the texture never fully recovers.

Scatter shredded coconut over the top and serve.