Is this the third baby cake in the series? We have had chocolate cake, carrot cake and now this, lemon polenta cake.I feel like I have been baking a lot lately which is so lovely. The mini foodie has started nursery a few mornings a week and somehow all the stars and moons and fairies have aligned and she has also been enjoying two hour lunch time naps, which means that this mama has had a whole lot of time to hang out in the kitchen.
I love baking. I have to admit that I am not a traditional baker. I am not super careful about measurements and amounts (or even sieving the flour). I tend to throw delicious things into a bowl, follow a few basic rules (fat, sweet, raising agent, hot oven, greased tin) and hope for the best. This lemon polenta cake was actually created for my beautiful mama friends birthday, I knew that she would want to/have to share her cake with her one year old son, so I thought I would try and make a cake that could please everyones tastebuds.

The only sweetener in the cake is the orange juice. The rich thick icing on top helps to make this feel more cake like and also adds another level of sweetness. If you have older children then you could switch 1/2 a cup of the flour for 1/2 cup of ground almonds.

Ingredients

1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup fine polenta
2 cups plain flour
1 cup orange juice
2 teaspoons baking powder
Zest of 1 large lemon

Method

Preheat your oven to 170C

Grease a 20cm tin or a medium gugelhopf tin

Mix all the ingredients together & pour into the tin

Bake for approx 35-45 mins or until baked through

Leave to cool before icing

For the icing I mixed together a small tub of greek yoghurt with 150g of mascapone. I then flavoured it with the juice of a lemon, 2 tbsp of elderflower juice and 2 tbsp of maple syrup