Here is a deliciously light cake just oozing fresh citrus flavour. It’s made with that Italian staple polenta, so is both wheat free and gluten free – great for anyone who’s on a special diet. The polenta is teamed with ground almonds and the juice of fresh clementines, so it smells wonderfully fragrant and isn't too heavy. The recipe, which appears here with permission, comes from Leon: Baking and Puddings by Claire Ptak and Henry Dimbleby £20, (pub. Octopus) a lovely baking book filled with tempting recipes for everything from chocolate brownies to baked Alaska. The authors rate this polenta cake suitable for beginners to make, so have a go, even if you haven’t baked before.
You can enjoy a slice of this moist flourless cake at teatime, or turn it into a pudding drizzled with a little cream or topped with a blob of rich Greek yoghurt. Clementines are generally associated with Christmas, but don’t worry if you can’t get hold of them at other times of the year. The authors of Baking and Puddings say you can experiment with other kinds of citrus fruit as well: lemon, for instance, is very good. If you wish, you can use agave nectar instead of honey for the syrup (this goes nicely if you substitute lime juice for the clementines).
Clementine Polenta Cake – Recipe
Ingredients – Serves 12
For the cake:
- 250g unsalted butter, very soft
- 250g caster sugar
- 2 free-range eggs
- 200g fine polenta
- 100g ground almonds
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- Zest and juice of 3 clementines
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
For the syrup:
- 50ml runny honey
- Juice of 1 clementine and 1 lemon
Method
- Heat the oven to 170C/340F/gas mark 3½. Butter a 25cm round cake tin and line it with baking paper.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the soft butter and sugar until very pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together by hand the polenta, ground almonds and baking powder. Add to the butter mixture and beat well. Fold in the Clementine zest and juice and lemon juice before scraping the mixture into your prepared tin.
- Bake in the over for 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
- To make the syrup, heat the honey with the Clementine and lemon juice in a small pan over a gentle heat until runny, then pour over the cake whilst it’s still hot. Leave to cool in the tin.
Rebecca Ford - I'm a UK based freelance travel writer and photographer - and the country I most like to visit is Italy. That's not just because of the ...
