Lemon polenta cake (gluten-free)

Last weekend, EHH was off on a boys’ weekend and I had a couple of my friends over for a girly night. EHH was disappearing off during the day on Friday, so I whipped up a quick batch of chocolate and raspberry brownies on the Thursday night for him to take with him.

With EHH gone, I had Saturday to myself to potter in the kitchen and so I decided to have a go at a new recipe that I had spotted in BBC Good Food magazine – a gluten-free lemon polenta cake. I had a few brownies left for dessert for the girls but thought that this would be a good alternative. This week was also my week for Friday cakes at work, so I figured it would be a good opportunity to practise a gluten-free cake to take in with me later in the week.

I was a bit wary about tackling this recipe: it required a 25cm tin and I don’t have one, so I had to adapt it to fit in a 20cm tin. As the original recipe required 300g butter, 300g sugar, 300g ground almonds and 150g polenta, it seemed fairly easy to do two-thirds of the recipe and hope that it worked out ok for the tin! The recipe asked for 5 eggs, so I decided to go with 3 eggs and 1 yolk.  I decided to up the lemon zing and added the zest of 3 lemons rather than 2. As usual, I wrapped the cake tin in my magi-cake cake strips before baking and these really helped it to rise and bake evenly.

It’s actually a really easy cake to make and, fortunately, fitted perfectly in the 20cm deep tin. The cake is light and zingy, with rich almond sweetness and texture from the polenta. The texture isn’t that of a normal sponge, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a “gluten-free” poor relative cake. Once soaked in syrup and dusted in icing sugar, it looks elegant and delicious, and would be a great addition to a refined afternoon tea. Definitely a cake that I’ll be making again!   

Lemon polenta cake

Ingredients

1. 200g butter, at room temperature
2. 200g golden caster sugar
3. 200g ground almonds
4. Finely grated zest of 2-3 lemons
5. 3 large eggs and 1 egg yolk
6. Icing sugar (to dust)

For the lemon syrup

1. Juice of 1 lemon
2. 2 tbsp icing sugar

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Grease and line a 20cm deep cake tin.
3. Beat the butter and sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy (at least 5 minutes).
4. Add the ground almonds, polenta and lemon zest.
5. Beat until combined.
6. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well until smooth (it will still be a fairly thick mixture).
7. Spoon the mixture into the tin and spread evenly.
8. Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden and springy.
9. Remove from the oven and place the tin on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes.
10. While it is cooling, place the lemon juice and icing sugar in a bowl and microwave for 45 seconds, until boiling and syrupy.
11. Turn the cake out onto a wire rack and prick with a skewer.
12. Spoon the syrup over the cake.
13. Leave cake to cool.
14. Dust with icing sugar before serving.  

Rhubarb and custard cake

I’m not much of a gardener, in fact that’s not true – I’m really not a gardener at all. I’m good at wandering around a garden centre and picking out what to grow and pretty pots to grow it in – then it is over to EHH (Ever Hungry Husband – for those who haven’t been following from the start!), who is in charge of planting and general care! Our garden is very much a work in progress so, at the moment, we are mostly sticking to things that can be grown in pots – ideally edible things! Last year’s effort was a bit of a spectacular failure – the never ending rain and general miserable-ness meant that pretty much everything refused to grow – except the rhubarb! Rhubarb seems to love damp and miserable conditions and grew like crazy!

This year, we haven’t even touched the rhubarb – it had just been left from last year, and again, it has sprung up and produced beautiful long red stalks and huge leaves. So, time to start digging out the rhubarb recipes! I absolutely love rhubarb and you really can’t go far wrong with a traditional rhubarb crumble with custard, or simple stewed rhubarb on porridge in the mornings. Looking back, my first blog post was about rhubarb crumble muffins! However, this time, I decided to have a go at a new recipe that I found on the internet: rhubarb and custard cake.

The recipe itself is very simple and (other than the rhubarb) the ingredients are fairly standard stock cupboard ingredients. You can get on with making the cake whilst the rhubarb is cooking.

Unfortunately, there is something about this recipe that just didn’t quite work. It cooked perfectly in the given time – the texture was soft and moist and the general flavour great. However, the custard powder could still be tasted and left a very dry taste and texture in the mouth, which ruined the overall taste of the cake. This won’t be a recipe that I will try again – there are lots more rhubarb (and custard) cake recipes out there to try (including this crumble cake recipe that I made a few weeks ago and I'm sure would adapt well to rhubarb - possibly with strawberries) – and from the way that my rhubarb is growing, I’ll have lots of opportunities to try them out!

Rhubarb and custard cake

Ingredients

1. 200g rhubarb, trimmed and cut into small pieces
2. 50g demerera sugar
3. 150g caster sugar
4. 150g sunflower spread
5. 3 eggs
6. 100g SR flour
7. 100g ground almonds
8. 1/2 tsp almond essence
9. 60g custard powder
10. 25g flaked almonds
11. 1 tbs icing sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Line the bottom of 20cm loose bottomed baking tin with baking parchment (or use a liner if you have one).
   Place the rhubarb and Demerara sugar in a pan with a tight fitting lid, cover and cook on a med/low heat for 7 mins or until just cooked, stirring occasionally.
3. Cream the spread and caster sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs, one at a time with 1 tbsp flour with each egg. Beat well after adding each egg.
5. Fold in the flour, ground almonds, almond essence and custard powder.
6. Loosely fold in cooked rhubarb.
7. Spoon into the prepared tin.
8. Scatter over flaked almonds and bake for 45-50 mins.
   Allow to cool in tin.
9. Once cool, remove from tin and dust with icing sugar.

Amaretti biscuits

It’s very nearly December, so time to start practising a few recipes that I like to do for little Christmas presents for friends and family. I’m meeting up with some friends tomorrow so I decided to have a go at one of my easiest Christmas recipes – amaretti biscuits. This is a Gino D’Acampo recipe taken from the BBC website – the only changes that I have made is that I roll the biscuits rather than spooning them onto the trays; I use parchment rather than greaseproof paper (and so don’t need to butter the paper) and I make them much smaller than suggested. The original recipe suggested that it made 20 biscuits – I make about 70! I also find that they tend to take longer to bake than suggested (although this could be my oven) – I suggest turning the trays after about 12 minutes so that they bake evenly and leaving them in until they are golden brown all over.

These taste great but I'm still not completely convinced about this recipe - they don't rise or crack across the top in the way I would expect - and they are a bit chewier rather than crisp. Not sure if this is down to the way that I mix in the sugar and almonds - maybe I knock out too much of the air - I'm not sure. May give another recipe a go at some point soon.  

Amaretti biscuits

Ingredients

1. 340g/12oz ground almonds
2. 340g/12oz caster sugar
3. 4 eggs, whites only
4. 30ml/1fl oz amaretto liquor

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3.
2. Line two tins with baking parchment.
3. In a large bowl beat the egg whites until firm.
4. Mix the sugar and the almonds gently into it.
5. Add the amaretto liquor and fold in gently until you have a smooth paste.
6. Roll small balls of the paste and place on the baking trays – leaving at least 2cm between each as they will expand, whilst cooking.
7. Bake in the oven for approximately 15 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Leave to cool for a couple of minutes and then remove from baking trays and cool on a wire rack.

Raspberry Bakewell Slice

Cake number 4 for EHH’s birthday. This is one of my favourite recipes, although a bit of a faff to make! It’s originally from GoodFood magazine a couple of years ago and I’ve made it several times. It can be eaten warm, with custard or cream, as a dessert, or it’s just as great cold – ideally with a cup of tea!

The original recipe suggested using Guernsey butter (which, as a Guernsey Girl, I’d highly recommend!) but I’ve not managed to find any available around here, so I use Kerrygold – an Irish butter, which is lovely and soft at room temperature.

The GF recipe suggests using defrosted frozen raspberries – I usually just use fresh. I also added in the step of glazing the pastry with egg/egg white and re-baking – something suggested by Mary Berry to ensure a lovely crispy pastry layer.

Not a very good picture as I finally finished cooking this one late at night and it was still cooling - so I couldn't take it out of the tin! EHH whipped it off to work early in the morning before I was up - so no chance to take a photo of what the slices look like! 

Raspberry Bakewell Slice

Ingredients

1. 375g pack sweet shortcrust pastry
2. 1 egg / egg white
3. 5 tbsp thick seedless raspberry jam
4. 100g raspberries,
5. 25g flaked almonds
6. 4 tbsp apricot jam

For the sponge

1. 200g butter, very soft, plus a little extra for the tin
2. 200g golden caster sugar
3. 100g ground almonds
4. 100g self-raising flour
5. 1 tsp baking powder
6. ½ tsp almond extract
7. 4 eggs, beaten

Method

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6.
2. Line the base and sides of a buttered traybake tin, about 18-20cm x 30cm, with baking parchment.
3. Roll out the pastry to line. Lift into the tin and evenly press right into the corners. Prick with a fork and chill for 20 mins.
4. Bake the pastry for 8-10 mins until it's cooked but not too coloured.
5. Brush with the egg / egg white and bake for another 5 minutes.
6. Cool for a few mins and turn down the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4.
7. Spread the raspberry jam over the pastry and scatter over the raspberries.
8. For the sponge, put all the ingredients into a large bowl and beat with an electric whisk until soft and very well mixed.
9. Spoon this over the raspberry layer, then smooth evenly.
10. Scatter over the flaked almonds and bake for 35-40 mins (I find it takes much longer – usually about an hour) until golden and firm.
11. Cool completely in the tin. Will freeze for up to 3 months - overwrap the tin with baking parchment and foil beforehand.

To serve, thaw for 4 hrs at room temperature, then reheat in a low oven. Melt the apricot jam with 1 tbsp water and brush over the top of the sponge just before serving.