Orange-Almond Polenta Cake
Mar 28th, 2010 by Yoko
This is a delightfully light and fluffy cake with the pleasant taste of oranges and a hint of almonds. It’s also super-easy to make. I am slightly disappointed that it doesn’t have the consistency of baked polenta– it has more of a cornbread consistency, but lighter. I’m sure I could tweak the recipe to make it more polenta-like, but it’s perfectly fine the way it is.
The recipe is from Moosewood Restaurant Simple Suppers.
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup cornmeal
- 2/3 cup flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups almonds (I used less than this, as -ahem- Lipby ate most of the almonds. Don’t skimp on this, though)
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 orange (I used a Cara-Cara orange, as they were on sale)
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- confectioner’s sugar for dusting
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil and flour a 9-inch cake pan.
Sift cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. In a blender or food processor, process the almonds and sugar until the almonds are finely ground. Add mixture to the flour mixture.
Zest the orange peel and juice the orange into the blender. Add oil, eggs, and 1/3 cup of water and blend. Stop the blender, then add the dry ingredients until well blended. Pour into cake pan and bake for 35 minutes (the recipe calls for 45 minutes, but the bottom was slightly burned when I pulled it out, so I think it could bake for less time), or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.
Cool in the pan, on a rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.
When completely cool, dust with confectioner’s sugar.
Serve with fruit if desired.
