Lemon Polenta Cake

Ever since I bought the recipe book, "Bake Your Cake & Eat It Too by Tamara Milstein", I am eager to try out many of her recipes. The first cake that I bake a couple of weeks back, Key Lime Cake turned out really well. This sort of gave me the confidence that the rest of her recipes should be good too! Lemon Polenta Cake is the second cake that I am trying from this book. It turned out to be really soft and really moist. It is slightly a little too bit oily and as usual, I always reduce the amount of sugar used in almost any recipes. You can taste the coarse, grainy texture of the polenta, but it is softened by the liquid and butter. If you have eaten sooji cake (semolina cake), then the texture is almost similar. There is no flour used in this recipe as it is replaced by the almond meal and polenta. If you like the taste of polenta, then this is a nice cake to bake. Try it out, I'm giving the original recipe as it is. This is a rather large cake, so I only bake half the recipe.

Lemon Polenta Cake
(adapted from "Bake Your Cake & Eat It Too" by Tamara Milstein)

Ingredients:
500gm butter, softened
500gm caster sugar (for half the recipe, I only used 200gm)
zest and juice of 3 lemons
zest and juice of 1 orange
6 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
500gm almond meal
300gm yellow polenta
2 tsp baking powder
icing sugar, to serve

Lemon Marscapone:
500gm marscapone cheese
1 cup of icing sugar
juice of 1 lemon

Method :

1. Preheat the oven to 170C and butter a 24cm springfrom non-stick cake tin.
2. Beat the butter, sugar and zests of lemon and orange together until thick and pale. With the motor running, add the eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition.
3. Remove the bowl from the mixer, then mix in the lemon juice, orange juice, vanilla essence, almond meal, polenta and baking powder. Mix thoroughly so that all the ingredients are combined.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared tin, tapping lightly to make sure there are no air bubbles.
5. Bake at 170C for 1 hour, then reduce the heat to 160C and bake for a further 40 mins. If necessary, cover the cake with foil if it is beginning to brown too quickly.
6. When the cake is finished baking, remove it from the oven and allow it to cool in the tin. When it is cold, remove the cake from the tin.
7. To serve, sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with some lemon spiked marscapone.

Lemon Marscapone :
To make this creamy accompaniment, beat the cheese, sugar and lemon juice together until smooth then chill until ready to serve.

(my notes: for half the recipe, I bake at 170C for 40 mins, then cover with foil and bake at 160C for 30 mins)