Baking with Flavor: Recipe for Semolina Spice Cake

The crumb structure in Semolina Spice Cake resembles tiny interlaced flowers. Zoom into the image and see if you can find a few cakey flower heads. The center of the these crumbs looks like a circle of air—just like the flowers on the dessert plate.

Semolina cake soaked in sweet syrup tastes divine, but an equally delicious and less sugary alternative exists. A pastry base that accommodates complementary spice mixtures, in combination with flavor extracts and citrus zest, gets the job done. Want to know a secret? You don't have to be a professional pastry chef to master baking with flavor.

The building blocks for the structure of a healthy and tasty semolina cake are: semolina flour, coconut sugar, lowfat yogurt, eggs, all-purpose flour, vegetable oil, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt. Extracts, citrus zest and warm spice mixtures shape flavor. This is where you can be fearlessly creative and try something new.

The more you bake the more you understand the character of ingredients separately and in combination. This builds confidence and an unquantifiable aspect—a baker's personal essence. Have you ever tasted a cookie baked by two different people using the same recipe and noticed they were similar yet distinct? You can taste the je ne sais quoi.

Baking with flavor happens when you immerse all of your senses in the process. Focus on what you see, smell, touch, hear and taste along the way. Semolina Spice Cake is delicious and inspiring to make. Be sure to share the recipe with friends and family so they can put their own spin on a healthy cake that quickly disappears after it's made.

Semolina Spice Cake
Recipe by Michelle Krell Kydd
Serves nine people

Ingredients

• 1 cup semolina flour 
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 
• ½ cup coconut sugar 
• 1½ cup of plain 1% fat yogurt (nonfat is fine)
• 1 medium organic lemon (zest only)
• ½ cup neutral vegetable with a high smoke point (avocado oil or canola)
• 3 large eggs at room temperature 
• 1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon Hashems Ka’ak Spice
• ½ teaspoon baking soda 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder 
• ½ teaspoon sea salt 

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
• Prep an 8x8 non-stick baking pan with vegetable oil and set aside. 
• Combine the lemon zest and yogurt in a bowl and let it rest for 15 minutes. 
• Measure and combine semolina flour, all-purpose flour, Ka’ak Spice, baking soda and sea salt into a large mixing bowl. Mix everything together using a silicone spatula. 
• Beat eggs and vanilla in a medium sized mixing bowl using a fork. Add coconut sugar and combine until the sugar is completely dissolved. 
• Add vegetable oil and lemon infused yogurt to the egg mixture and incorporate using a silicone spatula. 
• Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix until the batter is smooth (no lumps).
• Pour the batter into the pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Test for doneness by using a toothpick inserted in the center of the pan (it's done when the toothpick comes out clean). 
• Allow the cake to cool for 30 minutes. 
• Slice into nine pieces using two vertical and two horizontal cuts. 
• Serve with a side of maple syrup sweetened yogurt (the same yogurt you used to make the cake) or a pair of Medjool dates and fresh walnuts. 
• Store the cake in a sealed container in the refrigerator. This cake also freezes well.

Notes:

This recipe can be modified with your favorite warm spice blend. Chinese Five Spice, Gingerbread Spice, Apple Pie Spice, Pumpkin Pie Spice, etc. These require less than 1 tbsp+ 1 tsp of your spice blend of choice. Use 1 tbsp and refrigerate the cake for 24 hours. Citrus zest isn’t necessary, though a tablespoon of orange zest would be nice with Gingerbread Spice as this would resemble lebkuchen.

Ka’ak Spice Mix contains anise, cloves, cinnamon, mahlab, sesame seeds and black caraway. Grind the spice mix in a coffee grinder to ensure uniform texture and release flavor if the blend appears slightly coarse or has whole seeds in it.

The anise in Ka’ak Spice Mix has a sweet aftertaste so this spice mix is ideal for flavoring semolina cake that doesn't require the addition of sugar syrup. Extra vanilla extract in the recipe balances the anise so the overall effect is cakey. (The combination of anise, vanilla and lemon smells like bakeries I remember from childhood).

Oil-based semolina cakes are moist and have a spongier quality of density than cakes made with unbleached all-purpose flour (you can see it in the structure and separation of the crumb). The way semolina cake melts in the mouth increases retronasal olfaction (the intersection of smell and taste that produces flavor at the back of the mouth). Pour a tablespoon of warm maple syrup over a freshly baked slice and take a bite. Notice the mouthfeel (texture) and how this shapes flavor perception.

Feel free to try other warm spice mixtures (e.g. gingerbread, pumpkin pie, apple pie) and experimenting with complementary citrus flavors and extracts. Floral waters like rosewater and orange blossom water can be used like extracts. The possibilities are endless.

Glass Petal Smoke developed a cookie recipe using Hashems Ka'ak Spice. You can find it here. 

Sechuan Buttons: The Taste of Electricity

Nicolas Mazard, manager for micro-greens specialist Koppert Cress USA, is part ringmaster and part pusher. Dressed in company regalia he takes center stage at the Koppert Cress booth and presents an intriguing selection of microgreens to curious passersby at the 2008 International Chefs Congress. His melodious French accent and striking good looks are as riveting as the selection of micro-greens he presents; each intensely flavored and complex. The star of the show is not the Tahoon Cress (which tastes like the aroma of a beech tree forest after a good spell of rain) or the Purple Shiso (which tastes like fresh cumin and violets) or the Borage Cress (which tastes like the delicate brine of oysters and freshly cut cucumbers); it is a tiny flower head that Koppert calls the “Sechuan Button”. 

Sechuan Button is a term coined by Koppert Cress for Acmella oleracea, a plant developed through cultivation of Acmella alba, which is native to Peru and Brazil. The flavor of the flower head possesses a kick that resembles the spiciness of a Szechuan pepper, hence the name used to market it. Acmella oleracea became naturalized in East Africa and now grows throughout the continent. Its leaves are traditionally added to salads, soups and meat dishes, but the flower heads are more commonly used for toothache, throat and gum infections. 

The flower heads produce a unique sensation that is the umami of mouthfeel, creating a kinetic feeling on the side of the mouth where it’s chewed. Anesthetic effects of numbness and tingling accompany another sensory experience, which is unsettling to the novice Sechuan Button eater; watering of the mouth. When the puckish Mazard initiates the tasting of Sechuan Buttons, he carefully dispenses a quarter of a bud to each person, enthusiastically awaiting the response of audience members as they traverse a course that begins with fear and evolves into fits of giggling and laughter. “Remember what it felt like when you were a kid and licked a 9-volt battery?” Mazard asks, “That is the feeling you experience with Sechuan Buttons. It’s like having electricity in your mouth.” 

Koppert Cress suggests using Sechuan Buttons in sorbets and mixed drinks, but its application in flavors is limitless, provided that proper contrasts and pairings are achieved. Indulging in “buds”? That’s a bit Cheech and Chong. Chewing “buttons”? Sounds like an allusion to Aldous Huxley’s adventures with mescaline in The Doors of Perception. The marketing of Sechuan Buttons brandishes an element of the narcotic with the culinary, as well it should; the active ingredient in Acmella oleracea which produces unique sensations in the mouth is the molecule spilanthol (N-isobutyl-4, 6-decadienamide). Spilanthol is an antiseptic alkaloid that is a poison for most invertebrates, but harmless to warm-blooded animals. The molecule acts on the trigeminal nerve, which affects sensations in the face. 

My personal experience with the effects of Sechuan Buttons is a mild euphoria, which transpires after eating a single flower head over the course of an hour, one quarter of a bud at a time. Appetite makes the mouth water and Sechuan Buttons definitely trip a switch in the brain that triggers feelings of pleasure when you understand all of the plant’s sensory effects and aren’t frightened by them. There are six distinct qualities that are experienced when tasting Sechuan Buttons. As one chews the flower head, the senses course through green, bitter, numbing, electrical, tart, and lemon sensations. 

According to Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (also know as PROTA), essential oil distilled from the fresh flowers contains high amounts of the dietary cannabinoid β-caryophyllene (its flavor resembles black pepper, hence the appropriate marketing nomenclature on Koppert Cress’ part). Other major constituents include limonene (lemony), thymol (thyme-like), cadinene (green-like) and germacrene (spicy and woody). When one understands the sensory qualities of Acmella oleracea's molecules (referenced by flavor chemists as “organoleptic properties”) the science of taste becomes more fascinating as it is a yardstick with which one can measure sensory experiences. 

Sechuan Buttons have given the term “nipping it in the bud” a whole new meaning. Perhaps Koppert Cress USA should consider the California Milk Processor Board’s marketing of milk when promoting the exotic and zingy treat: "Got electricity?" Notes: Horizon Herbs sells three varieties of organic Spilanthes seeds (another species term for Acmella oleracea) that can be sown in the spring if you wish to grow your own flower heads. 

The plant also goes by the French name Brede Mafane or paracress. Micro-greens are a plant's first true leaves and are not to be confused with sprouts. Chefs use them as flavorful garnishes as their size belies the intensity of their flavor. The Koppert Cress micro-green selection is beautifully presented here. An equally compelling document on the Sechuan Button is available on the company’s site. Product photos and picture of Nicolas Mazard are from the Koppert Cress website.