21 January, 2012

Lemon Almond Polenta Cake


I aspire to be like Nigella Lawson when I'm older, settled down and a mother of about six! I love the way she dances around the kitchen like a diva, throwing things into her bowl left right and center, and then producing the most perfect cake you will ever see from her expensive oven.
This light, crumbly, lemon infused tea cake is taken from the queen of the kitchen herself. The majority of the cakes batter is composed of ground almonds (or almond meal) which adds a subtle yet noticeable flavour to the cake. The almond also works to retain moisture in the cake. And let me tell you.. you need that moisture in order for you to salivate as soon as the cake touches your lips.
I would like to say that this cake is healthy so that more of you would try it out. But the 200g of caster sugar that goes into it begs to differ...

 
Lemon and corn. The ingredients sound simple enough. And sure enough, the cake is too! I think every recipe that comes from Nigella is easy to understand, and the best thing is that the ingredients are in your pantry already!

  Lemon Polenta Cake adapted from Nigella Lawson (Serves 16)
 
  
Ingredients
- 200g soft unsalted butter, plus some for greasing
- 200g caster sugar
- 200g ground almonds
- 100g fine polenta/cornmeal
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder (gluten-free if required)
- 3 eggs
- zest 2 lemons

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4. Line the base of your cake tin with baking parchment and grease its sides lightly with butter.
Beat the butter and sugar till pale and whipped, either by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon, or using a freestanding mixer.
Mix together the almonds, polenta and baking powder, and beat some of this into the butter-sugar mixture, followed by 1 egg, then alternate dry ingredients and eggs, beating all the while.
Finally, beat in the lemon zest and pour, spoon or scrape the mixture into your prepared tin and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes.
It may seem wibbly but, if the cake is cooked, a cake tester should come out cleanish and, most significantly, the edges of the cake will have begun to shrink away from the sides of the tin. remove from the oven to a wire cooling rack, but leave in its tin.  

3 comments:

Tiffany said...

Yumm..... this must be a delicious cake, I just love almonds and lemons! Loving your blog and your recipes!

Zoe said...

I wish that I can be like Nigella too! LOL! Totally agree with you that she is a lucky gal that cook so well and has everything...

This gluten free lemon cake looks very yummy and your blog is fantastic! I'm happy to follow your blog to learn lots of baking skills from you.

Anonymous said...

Oh, this is FABULOUS! I love lemon and corn meal together....thanks for the recipe!