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.  

Carrot, pistachio and coconut cake (gluten-free)

Flicking through this month’s Good Food magazine, this cake caught my eye. A few friends and colleagues are coeliac and so I’m always on the look-out for good gluten-free recipes: this one looked really unusual and tasty.

Having decided to make this, and made sure that I had all the ingredients, I realised that I don’t own the 24cm cake tin that the recipe demanded. I decided to go with it anyway and split the mixture between 2 20cm sandwich tins. The cakes were obviously smaller and a little thinner than the original, but generally completely fine.

This cake was lovely and easy to make – a quick blitz in the stand mixer to froth up the eggs and sugar and then gradually add in the rest of the ingredients. It did take much longer than the suggested hour to cook though – I think it took about an hour and a half in the end, but my oven always bakes slowly so I have suggested 1 hour 15 minutes.

The Good Food recipe suggested serving the cake with rose scented double cream. However, I was taking this into work and so wanted to pretty it up a bit! I decided to flavour my icing with orange blossom water as I felt that it would complement the other flavours, but you could also use rose water and then top with crystallised rose petals rather than the orange zest – which could look really pretty.

I loved this cake! It was really unusual and had a lovely flavour and moist texture. I love the flavour of coconut but I’m not usually sure about desiccated coconut as the texture can be a bit dry and claggy. However, the rest of this cake was so moist that this was not a problem. I’ll definitely be making this again!

Carrot, pistachio and coconut cake

Ingredients

1. 3 large eggs
2. 200g golden castor sugar
3. 2 tsp vanilla extract
4. 200g ground almonds
5. 100g desiccated coconut
6. 2 tsp ground cinnamon
7. 140g butter, melted
8. 2 large carrots, grated
9. 100g pistachios, roughly chopped or pulsed in a mini processor

To ice:

1. 1 - 2 tsp orange blossom water
2. 100g icing sugar
3. Zest of one orange
4. Chopped pistachios

Or serve with:

1. 300ml double cream
2. 2 tblsp icing sugar
3. A few drops of rose water

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
2. Line one 24cm cake tin, or 2 20cm cake tins.
3. Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract in a stand mixer until frothy.
4. Stir in the ground almonds, coconut and cinnamon.
5. Stir in the melted butter.
6. Add the grated carrots and pistachios and stir until all ingredients are evenly combined.
7. Pour the mixture into the tin/s and place in pre-heated oven.
8. Bake for approximately 1 hr 15 minutes (check after an hour), or until cake is firm and golden on top.
9. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool in the tin for at least 4 hours.

To ice

1. When cool, mix the orange blossom water with the icing sugar.
2. Add extra water until the icing is smooth and pipeable.
3. Place the icing in a piping bag and drizzle over the cake.
4. Scatter over the chopped pistachios and the orange zest. 

Or to serve with scented cream:

1. Tip the cream, icing sugar and rose water into a mixing bowl.
2. Whisk to soft peaks.