This week’s challenge ingredients include:

Cream cheese: I had one rye bagel leftover in the freezer and couldn’t not eat it with a slathering of creamy smear, strawberries and honey. Life is there to be lived and bagels are there to be smeared. Unfortunately, with a lack of bagels, the cream cheese just sat in my fridge.

Half a packet of fine semolina flour: I bought this when I was making vanilla slice from scratch, because I’m fancy like that. I also made another vanilla slice from a packet mix, which seemed to go quicker than my homemade stuff. Probably because my friends are fools who wouldn’t know a good slice if it slapped them in the face. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Shredded coconut: This was also a slice ingredient from months back. I like sprinkling this on my yoghurt, but because it was buried under other stuff, I didn’t know I had it and it went uneaten.

Margarine: I’m usually quite an anti-margarine person. I needed this for gingerbread and hid it at the back of the fridge so I wouldn’t have to look at it every time I went for a glass of milk. But eventually I found it and, even though I think it is mediocrity in congealed form, it still deserves to be used rather than chucked in the bin.

Coconut essence: I honestly hate myself for forgetting I had this stuff; coconut is the best flavour.

Inspiration:

First off, I had to Google just what the heck one can do with semolina. As it turns out, it makes for a nice cake. I stumbled upon one recipe with yoghurt and coconut from someone who just goes by Layla on a website called GimmeDelicous. It’s called basbousa aka harissa and the pictures made it look like the perfect cuppa accompaniment. I of course tweaked it, because I had to work with what I had and I’m a bit of a loose unit like that.

How to do what I did:

Straight off the bat, I went rogue. I decided to use up the cream cheese in place of the yoghurt or sour cream Layla suggested. I figured cream cheese was close enough. I Googled “cream cheese sour cream alternative” and learned that mixing cream cheese with a bit of lemon juice and milk does the trick.

So I tipped exactly 156 grams of cream cheese into my food processor, along with 27 grams of lemon juice (yes, I’m aware that’s not the way to measure liquid, but I was using scales and this just seemed easier than dirtying a measuring jug) and a tablespoon of milk.

Then I melted 133 grams of margarine in a large mixing bowl in the microwave. The recipe called for two cups of coarse semolina, but I only had one and a half cups of fine semolina, so I added that. I think the yoghurt/sour cream/vague dairy mix and butter measurements were off too, so I didn’t think it would matter too much.

I next added one cup of shredded coconut, a third of a cup of caster sugar and a teaspoon of baking soda and gave it a stir. Next, I added the yoghurt alternative, two tablespoons of coconut essenceand the zest from the lemon I just squeezed.

I gave it a mix and it turned into this weird, airy kind of dough. I pressed it into a slice tin and put it in an oven preheated to 200 degrees for about 30 minutes. You’re supposed to let it go brown but I think that’s because you’re also supposed to make a sugar syrup to drizzle over the top, which keeps it moist. But I like things slightly undercooked and couldn’t be arsed to make a sugar drizzle, so I ripped it out at the first sign of bronzing.

I quite enjoyed my first piece, but I quickly realised its dryness made very much a slice rather than a cake. I have a feeling more liquid would have changed this but, to be honest, I don’t mind a good dry slice.

I didn’t have any on me, but I reckon topping this with lemon curd would lift it from an average slice you eat like a Chiko roll to a dainty morning tea item you eat off a saucer with a cake fork.