When it’s sunny, I crave citrusy flavors and the best thing I do is to bake the lemon and polenta cake and the best thing about it is it is completely gluten-free. To begin with, cream some sugar and butter together, place the butter in a mixing bowl along with caster sugar and bet them until they are really pale. Add the zest of three lemons after beating the mixture, make sure to use a really nice grater so that you get all the good bits. Squeeze two tablespoons of lemon juice into the butter and sugar mixture then that goes back into the mixer and beat that until it is well combined. Add two large eggs one by one and beat really well after each one.
Add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract and give it a little mix just to make sure that really well incorporated. Its time to add the dry ingredients and make them together first, place 175 grams of ground almonds in a bowl then add 70 grams of polenta, a teaspoon of baking powder and a good pinch of salt. Whisk that together to make sure it is really well made. Fold that in with the rest of the mixture is really gentle. Once the batter is well combined, remove it and into a tin which is greased really liberally with butter and lined with parchment paper.
Place into an oven at 170 degrees for about 50 minutes until a skewer comes out clean when you put it in the cake. We want to bump up the lemony flavor of the cake by putting a really simple lemon icing. Put 100 grams of sifted icing sugar in a bowl, add two tablespoons of lemon juice and using a small whisk, mix that together until it is really cute. Pour the lemon icing over the top of the cake and let it drizzle all the way down the lemon polenta cake. This is such a simple cake to make and packed with zingy lemony flavor.
Ingredients;
- 200 grams soft unsalted butter
- 200 grams caster sugar
- 200 grams ground almonds
- 100 grams fine polenta (or cornmeal)
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- 3 large eggs
- zest of 2 lemons
For the syrup;
- juice of 2 lemons
- 125 grams of icing sugar
Instructions;
- Line the base of a 23cm / 9inch springform cake tin with baking parchment and grease its sides lightly with butter.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/gas mark 4/ 350°F.
- 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.
- Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon juice and icing sugar in a smallish saucepan.
- Once the icing sugar’s dissolved into the juice, you’re done.
- Prick the top of the cake all over with a cake tester, pour the warm syrup over the cake, and leave to cool before taking it out of its tin.
