Whenever Thierry and Gail invite us to their home for dinner, I am blown away by the recipes I discover. Gail is a fantastic cook; I am never disappointed and thankful (in more ways than one) that we bumped into each other's lives. Thierry is happy. I am getting chubbier, and life is good.
Gail should open a bakery.
Gail uses Nigella Lawson's recipes. I never knew of Nigella, but I am a big fan since I have had a few of her recipes from Gail's hand.
Big.
The other night we had Gail and Thierry over to our house for dinner.
French Husband made cucumber, basil, green onion, melon, and limoncello smoothies. Oh my.
I made vegetable tartlets without the crust, amongst other things…
but the HIT was the dessert that Gail brought over:
Lemon Polenta Cake.
It is now my favorite dessert ever.
Have you tried it? Don't! You will eat the entire cake by yourself because you will not want to share.
It is that good.
"This cake is a sort of Anglo-Italian amalgam. The flat, plain disc is reminiscent of the confections that sit geometrically arranged in patisserie windows in Italy; the sharp, syrupy sogginess borrows from the classic English teatime favorite, the lemon drizzle cake. It is a good marriage: I love Italian cooking in all respects save one – I find their cakes both too dry and too sweet. Here, though, the flavorsome grittiness of the polenta and tender rubble of ground almonds provide much better a foil for the wholly desirable dampness than the regular flour. But there is more to it than that. By some alchemical process, the lemon highlights the eggy butteriness of the cake, making it rich and sharp at the same time. If you were to try to imagine what lemon curd would taste like in cake form, this would be it."
Lemon Polenta Cake
for the cake
- One ¾ stick soft unsalted butter (plus some for greasing)
- 1 cup superfine sugar
- 2 cups almond meal
- ¾ cup fine polenta (or cornmeal)
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder (see note below)
- Three large eggs
- zest of 2 lemons (save the juice for syrup)
for the syrup
- juice of 2 lemons
- 1 cup confectioners' sugar
Method
- 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/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 the almonds, polenta, and baking powder, and beat some of this into the butter-sugar mixture, followed by one egg, then alternate dry ingredients and eggs, beating all the while.
- Finally, beat in the lemon zest, 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. You can remove it to a wire cooling rack from the oven, but leave it in its container.
- Make the syrup by boiling the lemon juice and confectioners' sugar in a smallish saucepan.
- Once the confectioners' sugar's dissolved into the juice, you're done.
- Prick the top of the cake with a cake tester (a skewer would be too destructive), pour the warm syrup over the cake, and leave it to cool before taking it out of its tin.
NOTE: to make this cake gluten-free, could you use gluten-free baking powder or omit the baking powder altogether and beat the batter exuberantly at step 4?
For more recipes from Nigella Lawson, follow her blog:
Meanwhile, back with Thierry and Gail… all is well.
Happiness combines things that make us feel safe, loved, and want to share.
What is your recipe for happiness?
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