Cevizli İrmik Tatlısı

The walnuts go into the batter rather than on top, and the syrup is spiced with cloves and orange zest.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (yoghurt).

Ingredients

the cake

• 300 g fine semolina
• 150 g plain flour
• 250 g walnuts, coarsely chopped
• 200 g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 200 g thick yoghurt
• 120 ml sunflower oil
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• zest of 1 orange

the syrup

• 500 g light brown sugar
• 600 ml water
• 6 cloves
• a wide strip of orange peel
• juice of ½ lemon

Method

1. THE WALNUTS GO INTO THE BATTER RATHER THAN ON TOP. Two hundred and fifty grams, chopped coarsely and folded through, which is a great deal relative to the three hundred of semolina. Suspended through the cake they stay dry and crunchy inside the soaked crumb, so every mouthful has both -- where walnuts scattered on the surface sit in the syrup, go soft, and are the first thing to fall off when a piece is lifted. It also means the cake has structure: the nuts hold the crumb together as it takes up the syrup.
2. THE SYRUP IS SPICED WITH CLOVES AND ORANGE PEEL AND THEN THEY ARE TAKEN OUT. Six cloves and a wide strip of peel, simmered in the syrup and then fished out before it is poured. Cloves left in go on infusing as the cake sits and by the next day the dessert tastes medicinal; the twelve minutes of simmering gives exactly enough.
3. THE SUGAR IN THE SYRUP IS LIGHT BROWN, NOT WHITE. It gives a deeper colour and a faint toffee note that stands up to the cloves, where white sugar syrup under this much spice tastes thin.
4. THE ORANGE ZEST GOES IN THE CAKE AND THE PEEL IN THE SYRUP. Zest is fine and bitter-free and perfumes the crumb; a wide strip of peel in the syrup gives a rounder, slightly bitter orange from the pith side. Doing both is the point -- using zest in both places gives a one-dimensional orange flavour.
5. THE BATTER IS WHISKED AND RESTED, THEN BAKED. Eggs and sugar whisked properly, which this cake needs as a leavening alongside the baking powder, then the semolina given twenty minutes to hydrate.
6. HOT CAKE, COOL SYRUP, CUT FIRST. Scored through before baking as with any tray of this kind, and the cooled spiced syrup poured over the hot cake. All of it is taken up over four hours.
7. The syrup ingredients, with the cloves and ORANGE PEEL, boiled 12 MINUTES.
8. The cloves and peel FISHED OUT and the syrup LEFT TO COOL COMPLETELY.
9. The eggs and sugar whisked 6 MINUTES until pale and thick.
10. The yoghurt, oil and ORANGE ZEST whisked in.
11. The semolina, flour and baking powder folded in, then the chopped WALNUTS folded through the batter.
12. RESTED 20 MINUTES.
13. Spread in a lined 30 x 20 cm tin and SCORED into squares.
14. Baked at 180°C for 35 MINUTES, until golden and firm.
15. The COOL spiced syrup poured over the HOT cake, all of it.
16. Left UNCOVERED 4 HOURS.
17. TESTED: the walnuts inside should still be crunchy while the crumb is soaked. Soft nuts mean they were scattered on top instead of folded in.
18. Cut on the score lines.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes