Lemon Polenta Cake

Moya brought this along to our What's Cooking Planning lunch. It was lovely.


LEMON POLENTA CAKE

This cake is delicious served with homemade lemon curd and crème fraîche or cream. I usually double the quantities given below and use three lined loaf tins – eat one and freeze two!

Ingredients
200g butter
200g caster sugar
200g ground almonds
100g polenta
3 eggs
4 lemons
1tsp baking powder
6 extra tablespoons caster sugar

Method
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C.
Grease and line an 8 inch round cake tin.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, adding a small amount of the ground almonds if mixture starts to curdle.
Add the remaining ground almonds and beat well.
Stir in the polenta and baking powder.
Grate in the zest of one lemon and the juice of half a lemon.
Mix well and put into the baking tin. Bake for between 45 minutes and one hour – until a skewer comes out cleanly.

While the cake is cooking, grate the rind of two lemons and extract the juice from the remaining three and a half lemons. Place in a small saucepan with the 6 tbsp of extra sugar. Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved.

When the cake is cooked, keep it in the tin and prick it all over with a skewer. Immediately pour over the lemon syrup and leave it to soak in. Leave to cool in the tin.

Variations
I sometimes replace some of the ground almonds with dessicated coconut.
For a stronger flavour of almonds I sometimes add 1tsp almond essence at the butter/sugar stage.