May 17, 2017
Last weekend was Mother’s Day, and my mum was lucky enough to be away for the whole weekend at Stanthorpe! Wish she’d invited us along too, I love the wineries down there, so I was very jealous! But it meant that our Mother’s Day celebration got pushed back to the evening, so my sister and I coordinated to make a delicious meal in celebration of our mum.
I attribute my Mum’s love of cooking to what really got me into it. She’s always been an amazing cook, and really great at coming up with new and creative recipes that she whips up with whatever she has on hand. I am always amazed by her ability to cook on the fly, and really push the boundaries. Growing up having that sort of role model in the kitchen has meant that I have learnt some amazing skills, but above all really created a passion for food, cooking and baking. I really look up to her, she’s such an amazing woman outside of the kitchen too! I’m so lucky to have such an awesome mum, so my sister and I wanted to really make her feel special on Mother’s Day as a way of saying thanks for all the support, love and amazing role modelling she does every day.
My sister decided to focus on savoury as she is the queen of slow cooked meat (seriously, I’ve asked her to teach me her tricks, her roasts are beyond good), and I offered to focus on two of my favourite things: cheese and dessert. Cheese was pretty easy, I just went down to the local deli and picked out a couple of cheeses I had tried in Melbourne and loved. But then it was on to picking a dessert that would be special enough for mum, but also something she would enjoy eating. See, I didn’t get my obsession with chocolate from my mum, she isn’t the biggest fan. This is probably one of the only things I will never see eye to eye with her on, but that’s ok, more chocolate for dad and me! My mum has also become gluten free in the past couple of years, which makes it a little more difficult to make a dessert. She’s not a huge sweet person, and doesn’t love chocolate, and can’t eat gluten. What is a girl to do?
Luckily, mum is a huge fan of italian cakes and sweets, which often end up being gluten free. She loves the flavours of almond meal, lemony, spices and all that good stuff that goes in to some Italian and European sweet cooking. So I ended up going to this sort of style, and finding a cake which sounded just right! I have to say, this was probably a bit based on what I felt like cooking, because I am a huge fan of polenta cakes, and I found a recipe for a lemony polenta cake that caught my eye straight away! It was such a perfect cake to make, and I knew mum would love it which was the main thing!
- 200 grams unsalted butter, softened plus extra for greasing
- 200 grams caster sugar
- 200 grams almond meal
- 100 grams polenta
- 1½ tsp baking powder
- 3 large eggs
- zest of 2 lemons save juice for syrup
- juice of 2 lemons
- 125 grams icing sugar
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Preaheat the oven to 180C (350F). Line the base of a cake tin with baking paper and grease the sides of the tray with butter.
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Using a stand mixer on low, beat the butter and sugar till pale, about 3 minutes or so.
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Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, combine the almonds, polenta and baking powder. Once the butter and sugar is mixed, pour about a third of the dry ingredients into the stand mixer, allowing to combine before adding 1 egg. Alternate between adding the dry ingredients and an egg until all of the mixture and eggs are in the mixture, allowing to combine after each addition.
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Use a spatula to push the mixture down from the sides of the bowl and mix to combine completely.
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Beat in the lemon zest and pour the mixture into your prepared tin, using the spatula to evenly distribute the mixture. Bake the cake in the oven for about 40 minutes.
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The cake will be done when it has begun to shrink away from the sides, and the top is golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave in the tin to cool slightly.
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While the cake cools, add the lemon juice and icing sugar to a saucepan on a medium heat. Stir until the sugar dissolves completely and remove from heat.
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Prick the top of the cake all over with a cake skewer, and pour the warm syrup over the cake. Use a spoon to ensure the syrup evenly distributes across the cake, as it will pool in the middle. Allow to cool before removing from the tin.
I was a bit nervous while this cake was cooking, as I’m not the best cake baker in the world! I wish I was, but for some reason I just often can’t get them quite right. When the cake was cooking, it seemed like a bit of butter was seeping out the bottom, which got me really concerned! However, when I took this out of the oven, it was perfectly cooked and smelt amazing! It has restored my faith in cake baking once more, perhaps I need to try making more of them to get some good practice in!
This cake was totally made by the lemon syrup. It was packed full of flavour, and made the cake itself super moist and delicious. I was worried it might have been a bit too dry but when we served it up it had just the right amount of liquid to make the cake super syrupy, without being a runny mess. I was a bit worried about this too as the cake takes a while to absorb the syrup. If this happens to you, just keep spooning it over the cake until there is no more liquid pooling on the top.
My mum absolutely loved this cake, which was all I wanted to achieve! We served it with some delicious gelato from down the road, but you could easily serve it with cream, or even on it’s own! It was so delicious you probably didn’t need anything with it.
I loved how simple this cake was to make. Compared to other cake recipes, I was surprised by how easy it was, especially as it was gluten free. It would be quite easy and quick to whip this up at the last minute, as long as you had the ingredients on hand. Plus, it is so delicious, you will find it hard to only take one slice!
Until next time, happy eating!
Ella xx
