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!