Sfouf Recipe (Turmeric Cake)

Sfouf or Turmeric Cake is an oven-baked cake that you would surely love for its budget-friendly ingredients. This Arabic cake recipe could rarely ever go wrong since the step-by-step process is quick and easy to follow.

Sfouf is not overly sweet nor creamy. It contains turmeric, which imparts a distinct and delicious flavor that elevates it above the ordinary cakes you usually bake at home.

The yellow cake gets its lovely yellow color from turmeric, and it also has a crumbly but supple texture. Indeed, the turmeric in the mixture made the Sfouf a whole lot different cake from the rest of the baked goods common to households and bakeries.

Combining a cup of coffee in the morning and a cup of tea in the evening is a perfect way to enjoy the cake. To those who practice Ramadan, it is ideal for enjoying throughout the month because it is light enough to have after a heavy Iftar meal while still satisfying your appetite for something sweet.

This recipe highlights multiple ingredients that add an exciting flavor to the cake. Read further along to learn the steps for making the perfect Sfouf for your family and friends!

What Really is Sfouf?

Sfouf has been a popular Lebanese light dessert for many years, served primarily on special occasions such as birthdays, family reunions, religious holidays, and afternoon tea. The cake is distinguished by its bright yellow hue, mainly owing to turmeric and semolina in its composition.

Why Does This Sfouf Recipe Works?

This Lebanese Turmeric Cake recipe has a set of baking procedures that are quick and easy to follow. Yet there are still so many recipes varieties on the internet, which would surely confuse first-timers on what to follow to make their delightful Sfouf. Worry not, though. This recipe is the must-try among all other recipes because of the following reasons:

1. It is really simple, and you can bake it effortlessly!
2. The ingredients are among the most common ones to the point that you could even find most of them in your cupboard or the closest supermarket to your house.
3. It is a vegetarian-friendly dish, so you have nothing to worry about if you are on a diet.
4. The versatility of its taste allows you to serve this turmeric cake to anyone at any time of the day.
5. This cake is eggless, which makes it suitable for people who don't like the taste of eggs in their food.

What's in This Sfouf Recipe?

Semolina. In most cases, it's utilized to make pasta because it's coarse and cleansed. Instead of using flour alone, this cake calls for fine semolina to nutty flavor and texture.

All-purpose Flour or Cake Flour. All-purpose flour is an excellent flour for baking and mixing up a batch of pastry batter. However, if you want to make exceptionally soft cake layers, use cake flour.

White Sugar. White sugar helps to make baked goods soft and moist as well. The white sugar's moisture helps prevent the cake from drying out too rapidly after cooking. It also imparts additional sweetness!

Vegetable Oil. Cakes produced with vegetable oil have a texture that is often superior to cakes made with butter or other types of oil. As a result, we're going to use vegetable oil in this recipe. Cakes made with vegetable oil bake up loftier and richer with a more uniform crumb and retain their moisture and tenderness much longer.

Turmeric. Turmeric imparts a beautiful golden color, a sweet and unique flavor, and antioxidant benefits to the cake. One tablespoon of turmeric combined with the rest of the ingredients in this recipe makes a significant difference.

Baking Powder. Baking powder is a simple way to make your cakes rise because it contains all of the ingredients necessary to make a cake rise. This leavening agent is required in baking to achieve lighter cakes as well.

Milk. It makes various critical contributions to the final output of this baking recipe. It gives moisture to our turmeric cake by reacting with the dry ingredients. Additionally, it contributes to its taste.

Tahini. Grease your pan with Tahini; this is the traditional Lebanese way of preparing for the turmeric cake. However, you may use butter instead.

Pine Nuts or Almonds. The choice is yours to make of whatever you would like to sprinkle on top of your cake; pine nuts or almonds. Pine nuts, like cashews, impart a delicate, nutty flavor to the sfouf, as well as a sweet note of flavor. Meanwhile, if you want to add a sweet with a bitter taste to your Sfouf, putting some Almonds is the answer.

How to make Sfouf Recipe (Turmeric Cake)?

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/375F. Grease a 20 cm baking pan with tahini or butter.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix together milk, sugar and oil until the sugar dissolves completely.
3. Stir in flour, semolina, baking powder and turmeric until the batter is smooth.
4. Pour the batter into the baking pan, and sprinkle the pine nuts on the top.
5. Bake for 40-45 minutes.
6. Let the cake cool down on a wire rack and cut the turmeric cake, and serve.

Top Tips!

• Measure your ingredients and strictly follow these measures. This is an easy recipe to make, but one simple mistake in the measurements of the ingredients and the outcome would definitely not be as good as what you may expect.
• Always make sure that you are only mixing the cake batter until the ingredients are thoroughly combined. Overmixing the batter results in a cake with a hard texture.

Recipe Variations

• This is an eggless and butterless recipe; hence it is an almost vegan dish if milk was not among the ingredients. However, you may change the milk into plant-based milk such as soy milk and almond milk. That way, the cake you will be making is totally vegan.
• Here is a trick; unsweetened applesauce is the best alternative to using vegetable oil in the cake mixture. Unsweetened applesauce makes the cake moister and richer in texture.
• Make turmeric cake without milk and replace milk with yoghurt.
• You can add orange or lemon extract to the batter if you like.
• You can also add ½ teaspoon ground ginger, it goes well with this cake.

Serving Suggestion

You can pour a sugar or honey syrup and garnish petals over the cake. Serve slices of Sfouf with hot coffee or a cup of tea. You can cut them into squares, rectangles, or any shapes you want.

Sprinkle more raw pine nuts on the top, too! It adds excitement to every bite.

Recipe FAQs

More Cake Recipes

• 3-Ingredient Chocolate Cake
• Lazy Cake - No-Bake Chocolate Biscuit Cake
• Coffee Cake With Coffee Cream Frosting

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