Pear, blueberry and polenta cake

I have baked this cake over two weeks ago, when we invited friends over for an afternoon tea. It was the day after my birthday, and I wanted to bake something special. One of our friends is on a gluten free diet, and he's been a trusted guinea pig experimental tester for my gluten free bakes for years. I dug out a copy of Seriously Good Gluten-Free Baking by Phil Vickery, and picked a few possible bakes. I loved the sound of soft pine nut cookies, but when I started rummaging through my supplies, I realised I didn't have any rice flour. But I had all the ingredients for Pear, blueberry & polenta cake.

I have tried to find this recipe online but couldn't, so here's a photo from the book in case you are interested how to bake it.

I didn't fancy doing a frosting for the sponge, and served it with a Haagen Dazs Vanilla ice cream.

To be honest, I wasn't thrilled with the recipe. The cake tasted too oily to my taste, and I think 3tsp of baking powder for this cake is way too much. I only used 2tsp, and even at that amount I could taste it. Our guests though liked it and it was quickly polished. Not sure if that's because they were kind and polite, or whether they really liked it, because I didn't. I might try to adapt the recipe and maybe use half/half of polenta and gluten-free flour, and also reduce the amount of oil and sugar too. The combination of pears and blueberries was a good one though.

Have you tried any recipes from Phil Vickery's book? Which ones would you recommend for me to try?

As I have bookmarked a few recipes from this book, adding my post to Bookmarked Recipes  linky on Tinned Tomatoes blog written by Jacqueline.