It is a fruit of the season and I just felt like something unusual: I’ve always wanted to try polenta in baking and here was my perfect excuse! Be warn though: best eaten same day so it made some happy neighbours….
Ingredients:
Cake:
- 5 tangerines or clementines, peeled and seedless
- For the cake tin base: a little soft butter and demerara sugar
- 125g soft butter
- 3 eggs
- 1 tbsp tangerine zest
- 170g fine polenta
- 130g caster sugar
- 280g greek yoghurt
- 180g ground almond
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 2 or 3 tbsp poppy seeds
Syrup:
- Boil together the juice of 1 orange and 100g sugar
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 180°C/ 160°fan/ Gas 4 and prepare a baking pan 30×20/ 12″x8″: spread the butter at the bottom and sprinkle with a generous amount of sugar so the pan is well covered
- Lay the tangerines segments, making sure all the bitter membranes are removed: should make 4 nice rows and I suggest alternating the direction for each rows
- In a large bowl (I used my stand-mixer), beat together the butter, eggs, zest, polenta and the sugar until pale and creamy
- Sift together the almond and baking powder in a small bowl
- Add the dry ingredients, seeds and yoghurt to the mixture and fold in by hand
- Pour over the fruit
- Bake in the oven for about an hour: until it’s golden in colour and a knife comes out dry, so you might have to cover with foil in the last 10 to 15mn
- Once out of the oven, prick the cake with a tooth pick and pour some of the syrup onto the cake
- Let it cool down half an hour then turn upside down
- When the rest of the syrup has thickened to honey consistency, glaze over the tangerines
Really nice with cream!
