Gluten Free Revani - Greek Semolina Cake - my mom's Katerina recipe

My mom’s Revani is famous because she has always bake it at dinners with friends, family & relatives!

I have the best childhood memories of that dessert and family & relatives dinners and I didn’t thought it was that easy because I’ve never had to bake it before as my mom always bake it for me. But when celiac disease entered my life, I had to eat it for almost 3.5 years and I missed it quite a bit. Especially when I made the ice cream and remembered the carefree summers that I spent as a child at our house at the seaside.

My mother made this dessert for us even didn’t have an electric stove with an oven. He was using a little round electric pan with a lid that he called a ‘robot’ and it really was like something out of a sci-fi movie. However, this dessert was never missed from our house!

In this recipe I made, I didn’t change anything from my mother’s recipe, except the removing the gluten. The experts (friends and relatives) who taste it didn’t find any difference with my mother’s!

I’m very happy to present you the amazing fluffy revani of my mom Katerina.

Ingredients:

5 eggs
3/4 cup sugar (150 g / 5.3 oz)
1 cup oil (better sunflower oil or corn oil)
1 cup gluten-free flour (120 g / 4.3 oz)
1 1/2 cups polenta (corn semolina) (240 g / 8.5 oz)
2 tbsp baking powder (20 g / 0.7 oz)

for the syrup:

3 cups water
3 cups sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
½ lemon the peel

Instructions:

Put the ingredients for the syrup in a pot, boil it until it thickens and let it cool down.
Grease a pan (diameter 28cm / 11″) and sprinkle it with polenta.
In the mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar well.
Then add the oil and then the rest of the ingredients, continuing to beat for another 1-2 minutes.
Place the mixture in the pan and then in the oven.
Bake it in a preheated oven at 180°C / 350°F for about 40 minutes, until it gets a golden brown color on top.
As soon as it is cooked, cut it into pieces (I cut it in rhombuses shape as I inherited from the mother) and begin to slowly poor the cold syrup (room temperature).
Leave it for about 5-6 hours to cool down and absorb the syrup.

Tips:

Have always in mind this rule for syrup at cake desserts: one should be cold (room temperature) and the other hot. You can have the cake hot and the syrup cold (room temperature) or the cake cold (room temperature) and the syrup hot. If both are hot, the dessert will be like mud. If both are cold, the cake will not absorb the syrup.
It’s better to bake it from the previous day of the one you have to serve it, so the revani to have the time to rest, to cool down and absorb the syrup.
With a scoop of homemade ice cream on top, is the perfect dessert that impress all your loved ones.
See also the “summer” version Gluten Free Coconut Revani with shredded coconut