I always have this craving for semolina-olive oil cake. Olive oil cake has this rich, dense crumb, while semolina gives it an almost corn-like flavor that is mild and pleasant. I came up with this dessert because I bought a gigantic 3 pound tub of yogurt, and while I love yogurt(nowhere as much as Terry Jeffords from Brooklyn 99, which i recently binged online after realizing I only ever watched clips of it), I am only human and can only consume so much yogurt before I never want to eat yogurt again. Fortunately by using yogurt in a baked good, you don’t really taste it as much. Other ways to really transform it is by blending fruit into it, or making frozen yogurt out of it, both of which I wound up doing in the dish! Since we are making frozen yogurt, an ice cream maker is required to fully make this recipe! What makes this one so special is that I am making this rich olive oil cake that features Greek yogurt and semolina for a more tender crumb. The yogurt just hydrates the semolina in a way where the cake is very soft and has an almost melt-in-your-mouth texture to it. I also wanted to use a fruit that was in season, and peaches was the perfect answer to that. This wasn’t my first peach-olive oil dessert, but it certainly won’t be my last either! I also wanted to use pistachio, because the flavor of it works gorgeously with the tartness of the peach and the creaminess of the yogurt. And that was how this recipe came about!

For the recipe, we have semolina -yogurt olive oil cake with a spiced syrup soak, a pistachio frozen yogurt, peach yogurt and coulis, crushed pistachio, fresh sliced peaches, and pistachio-olive oil isomalt tuiles. In terms of difficulty, I would give this one a 5/10 – the cake is relatively easy to make, the yogurt comes together quickly, the coulis is not terribly difficult to make, and with frozen yogurt, you don’t need to cook the base like a creme anglaise before putting it into the ice cream machine, you simply need to whisk yogurt with simple syrup! So long as you have a blender for the coulis and frozen yogurt base, and an ice cream machine for the frozen yogurt itself, you can literally make this recipe with very minimal effort. The most technical component would probably be the isomalt tuiles themselves, but even then, it is just baking the isomalt and being delicate with it so that it does not shatter or break into too small of pieces – if that does happen, the beautiful thing with isomalt is that you can reheat it and it can melt back together, so you don’t even need to scrap it if you need to make that component! Overall, this is a fun dessert to make and you can really customize it with whatever fruit is in season when you are attempting to make it!

Makes 9 mini cakes, or roughly 4-5 servings:
For the spiced cake syrup:
1 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1/4 tsp clove
1/4 tsp cardamom

In a pot, heat up all of the ingredients until the water comes to a simmer and the sugar fully dissolves into the liquid. Take off heat and fully cool the liquid before reserving 3/4 of it for brushing on the cakes. The rest for the frozen yogurt.

For the pistachio frozen yogurt:
1/4 cup spiced cake syrup
1oz ground pistachios
a pinch of salt
3oz full fat Greek yogurt

In a blender, start by pureeing all of your syrup, pistachios, and salt together until those are fully combined. Fold that into the Greek yogurt first, then transfer to an ice cream maker. Churn the frozen yogurt base to the ice cream maker’s instructions, then let the frozen yogurt freeze for at least 1 hour before attempting to serve.

For the cake:
2 egg whites
1/2 cup granulated sugar, in two parts
1 cup semolina flour
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
6oz full fat Greek yogurt
4oz extra olive oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a bowl, whisk the egg whites with half of your sugar to stiff peaks. In another bowl, mix the other ingredients together until they are combined – due the dry nature of semolina flour, the mixture may resemble a clumpy dough more than a batter at first. To the mixture, fold in the whipped egg whites to form your batter. Line 9 cupcake tins with cooking spray and divide the batter between the tins. Bake at 350 degrees F for 18 minutes. Allow the cakes to fully cool before unmolding.

For the peach coulis:
1 peach, pitted and diced
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp granulated sugar
a pinch of salt

In a blender, puree the peach with water. Pass through a sieve and pour the strained liquid into a pot. Heat up with sugar and salt until the liquid comes up to a boil. Allow the coulis to cool down before using.

For the peach yogurt:
2oz peach coulis
4oz full fat Greek yogurt
.5oz olive oil
a pinch of salt

In a bowl, whisk everything together until smooth and creamy. Transfer to a piping bag or squeeze bottle for plating.

For the isomalt-pistachio tuiles:
.1oz olive oil
1oz finely ground isomalt
.5oz ground pistachios

Sift the isomalt onto a sheet tray lined with a parchment sheet coated in thin layer of the olive oil. Sprinkle the pistachio on top of that. Bake at 350 degrees F for 5 minutes – the end result should be translucent sugar with pistachio pieces throughout. Allow that to cool down completely before cracking into smaller shards to plate with. Store in an airtight container.

For garnish:
1 firm peach, peeled and pitted
olive oil
salt
crushed pistachios

With the peach, cut it into thin slices using a knife or mandolin. Toss with a little bit of olive oil and salt. To plate, start with a piping of the peach yogurt underneath. Break the olive oil cake into smaller cubes and scatter that on top of the yogurt. Sprinkle pistachio throughout the cracks and then place the peach slices on top of that. Finish with the isomalt tuiles.