Little Baby Lemon Polenta Cakes

A couple of years ago, while on a film date with some girlfriends, my friend Lydia whipped these little cakes out of her bag and handed them around. I was astonished. They had an interesting texture, tasted fantastic and were gluten free.

She had found the recipe in a copy of delicious. that I had left at her place. The article featured recipes from Rachel Grisewood’s cookbook Manna From Heaven: Cooking for the People You Love. I had skipped over this recipe – I didn’t have the right tray and gluten free stuff always seemed a bit fussy to me. However, it is not – these are easy, delicious and, in my opinion, the perfect size.

Thanks Lyds, here’s to wholesome little treats!

Little Baby Lemon Polenta Cakes

Makes around 24, depending on the size of your mini muffin tray.

225 g butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing

225 g caster sugar

3 eggs, lightly beaten

110 g ground almonds

110 g shredded coconut

110 g fine polenta

finely grated zest of 2 lemons

2 ½ tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (optional)

Icing:

225 g icing (confectioners’) sugar, sieved

2 – 3 teaspoons lemon juice

finely grated zest of 1 lemon (optional)

Set the oven to 150°C.  Grease and line 24 cups in a mini muffin tray. I line mine with baking paper rather than use mini muffin cups but either will do.

Cream the butter and sugar for 2 minutes, or until lump free – it doesn’t need to be light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs, then fold in the ground almonds, coconut, polenta, lemon zest, lemon juice, baking powder and vanilla.

Spoon the mixture into the cups. Bake for 20 – 30  minutes, or until the cakes are golden and just pulling away from the sides of their cups. Cool in the tin.

For the Icing, mix the sugar, lemon juice and zest in a bowl until smooth. Spoon over the little cakes – the icing will dribble down the sides a little. Leave the icing to set before eating.

Variation: Large Lemon Polenta Cake

This same recipe also works if you want to make just one cake. Simply grease and line a 24 cm round cake tin and bake for 30-50 minutes, or until golden. As Grisewood notes, it is pretty firm so is perfect to use as a base for decorations – a great birthday cake.

Adapted from Manna From Heaven: Cooking for the People You Love.

Banana Bread, Cookbooks & Kaylie

On December 31^st 2009, my friend Kaylie and I decided we would begin our New Years Eve celebrations in a relaxed way. It was the afternoon and still over 30 °C outside so we found ourselves walking into the local (and air conditioned) bookshop. Both food lovers, we scrawled our way through cookbook after cookbook. I made two wonderful purchases – Jamie Oliver’s Jamie's America and Sophie Dahl’s Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights.

Kaylie is a good cook; she loves food and has exceptional taste. And she values the experience of dining, so it is always a pleasure eating with her.

With a glass of wine in hand, I remember settling into the kitchen, next to another skilled cook and feeling completely at ease. From Jamie’s book we made spicy cornbread and a roasted avocado corn chip salad. And, when we were done having a lovely time at home, we went off to have a lovely time with our other friends. It was an excellent warm up to 2010.

That summer I cooked almost every day, and it was the other book, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights that starred. Sophie Dahl, a former model and the granddaughter of Roald Dahl, says, "I am not an authority on anything much, but I do feel qualified to talk about eating. I’ve done a lot of it."  Separated by seasons, the recipes in this book are simple and delicious.

My recipe for banana bread is an adaptation of Miss Dahl's version. I halved the sugar, added more bananas and threw in some garam masala. These days I do try avoiding all-purpose white flour when baking, this works perfectly with rye or whole spelt flour as she suggests.

While I call this ‘bread,’ my Danish housemate Maria calls it ‘cake.’ I try to forget this every time I eat it for breakfast and dinner. Maybe we should call it a loaf? Banana Loaf … doesn’t really have the same ring to it does it Maria!?

Banana Bread

75 g butter, softened

1 egg

½ cup brown sugar

5 very ripe bananas (I mash 3 and roughly chop the other 2)

1 tablespoon garam masala OR ½ tablespoon ginger and ½ tablespoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon vanilla extract (optional)

1 ½ cups spelt or rye flour (you can use unbleached all-purpose instead)

1 pinch salt

1 teaspoon bi-carb soda, sifted

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a loaf tin with baking paper.

Mix the butter and sugar well. If you can’t be bothered working with soft butter, it is fine to use it melted. Beat in the egg, your preferred spices and the vanilla extract if using. Add the mashed bananas and mix well. Throw in the rest of the bananas, flour, salt, bi-carb soda and gently stir until combined.

Put into the tin and bake for 1 hour. Check that it is cooked with a knife; it may need 10 more minutes. You don’t want to overcook this. If the batter is a little underdone around the whole bananas it will firm up when cool.

Remove from the oven, let it cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then turn it onto a rack.  

I like my banana bread toasted with a lick of butter.