Orange Polenta Cake with Orange Cream

It’s revision time at uni. And when I revise, I bake – I call it procrastibaking.

I had some fine polenta in my cupboard, so I decided to modify a BBC recipe and make myself a treat. The original recipe can be found here: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/12341/orange-polenta-cake

I love cooking with polenta – it adds a rich yellow colour to bakes, as well as a fantastic crumbly texture and a fantastic moistness.

I used self raising flour rather than plain flour with baking powder, purely for convenience. The cake rose so much, with the batter almost tripling in thickness. Yum. Other than that I kept the recipe the same, it was so simple and so easy:

• Cream 250g caster sugar and 250g butter until light and fluffy (I maintain that this is the most important part in any cake recipe)
• Add 4 eggs, 1 at a time
• Fold in 200g SR flour and 140g polenta
• Once combined, mix in the juice and zest of 2 oranges (the smell is fantastic!)

The recipe says it will be ready in 45 minutes (160C oven), but it actually took over an hour.

Whilst it was cooking, I made an orange cream. It’s unbelievably simple and just adds a hint of orange, but really lightens up the cream. All you need to do is gently mix 150ml double cream with juice from 1/2 an orange. The pectin in the orange will thicken up the cream to a whipped consistency without the need for whipping!

This is a great cake for sharing – it’s simple but different. Although it sounds fancy, it can be really cheap to make (polenta can be picked up in Asian supermarkets for 50p / 500g). As a student, I couldn’t ask for much more!

Happy baking xo