Wednesday 30 January 2013

Orange Polenta Cake

When Chris from Cooking Around the World announced the current cooking challenge, I liked the idea of travelling to Mexico (purely by means of cook books and online recipes). I have found lots of inspiring dessert recipes including the orange and almond cake as well as the polenta cake.This recipe is something in-between as it uses the ingredients from both cakes plus I had a lovely stash of juicy and sweet blood oranges delivered from Abel and Cole that I wanted to incorporate in the recipe.
So, it is more of a Mexico-inspired recipe rather than an authentic one.



Orange Polenta Cake
3 oranges (including 2 blood oranges)
4 eggs
200g caster sugar
200g butter, melted
100g self-raising flour
50g ground almonds
80g polenta
1 tsp baking powder

juice of 1/2 orange
4 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 blood oranges



Zest 2 oranges. In a big mixing bowl beat the eggs with the caster sugar and orange zest.
Squeeze the juice from 3 oranges. Add 2/3 to the bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, ground almonds, polenta, melted butter and mix well.
Grease the 20cm round cake tin. Pour the mix in the tin and place the tin in the oven preheated to 180C.




Bake for about 50-60mins (check if it's ready with a wooden skewer). I have covered the cake with the foil for the second half of the baking session.
Once ready, let it cool in the tin slightly before taking it out.
Mix the icing sugar with the orange juice (from 1/2 orange) and drizzle all over the top and sides.
Slice two blood oranges and cook them in the sugar syrup made with the remaining orange juice.
Decorate the cake with the orange slices and drizzle the remaining syrup on top.




The polenta gives the cake a slightly different texture, a bit coarse. Plus the top is a bit on the crisp side. My guys loved it. I baked it yesterday, and by now it's almost all gone. I am always happy when Sasha eats my cakes, for me that's the highest seal of approval.




Marvellous Chris from Cooking Around the World continues his culinary trip round the world, stopping in Mexico this time. I'm bringing my Mexico-inspired cake to his judgment.




Oranges seem to be very popular this month in the blogland. Baking queens Karen from Lavender and Lovage (this month's host) and Kate from What Kate Baked have chosen Citrus Fruits for their January Tea Time Treats challenge.



11 comments:

  1. That is one stunning cake Galina! THANKS for entering it inot Tea Time Treats! Love Karen xxx

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  2. Thank you Karen! It was truly delicious, oozing with orange flavour, and I am ecstatic that my Sasha loved it. He's soo difficult to please

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  3. It is a lovely cake, indeed. What a shame I can't have cake tonight. Orange flavour in cake is always very delicious. Thank you very much for joining us on our food trip to Mexico.
    The journey will go on. Maybe I will only stop, when I reach stage 2.

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  4. Oh this is just so lovely. I am really pleased you added it to the linky this month. Oranges are such a good and versatile ingredient and blood oranges turn this cake into something extra special.
    Thanks for entering One Ingredient!! xx

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  5. Chris, what's stage 2? Universe? lol Hope you will do a Russian challenge at some point.

    Laura, thank you! Blood oranges are beautiful and delicious. Your linky is amazing, I had a look at the list and there are so many recipes to bookmark.

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  6. Galina! I popped in for a visit with the intent of thanking you for visiting my blog, only to realize I'd been here yesterday... after spotting this recipe at Lavender & Lovage... which of course I've pinned to try sometime soon.

    Talk about deja-vu! Thanks again for visiting me, have a great weekend!

    ¤´¨)
    ¸.·´¸.·*´¨) ¸.·*¨)
    (¸.·´ (¸.·`¤... Jennifer
    http://jennsrandomscraps.blogspot.ca
    http://pinterest.com/jennp6

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  7. Jenn, and you too have a fab weekend! Thank you for following! Hope you try this recipe and enjoy it. I'm planning to bake it again this weekend.

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  8. Galina, this is a lovely idea. I made an orange cake too and thought about using polenta but used almonds instead. I do love polenta cakes and this one sounds simply delicious!

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  9. Thank you, Nazima! I baked it again yesterday, and today there's hardly left a piece, my guys love it so much

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  10. This cake sounds wonderful and I love your use of polenta and blood oranges. I was looking for some to make something similar, but I had no luck in finding any.

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  11. I made this cake yesterday with my kids help! It turned out much better than I thought and we enjoyed a slice with a nice warm cup of tea after watching the Rememberance parade through our town centre. It was really cold out so we looked forward to our cake when we got home!

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