Baking for Nightshift- Berry, Polenta and Orange Cake

I'm posting this a day late as I didn't get a chance before work last night. So here I sit in a mid-night duty fog making sure I get this posted. One of the reasons I want to post this now is that I know you will want to make it. It is so delicious. It's moist, flavourful, desserty yet great to have as a treat with a cuppa. In other words make sure you give it a go because I seriously doubt you will regret it. I think it would be even better with mascarpone, whipped cream or a lovely thick yoghurt (like the delicious Piako, Kapiti or The Collective ones). This recipe comes from the August-September Dish magazine (issue 37), which had an article and 8 fabulous sounding cakes to make. My aim is to cook them all. So far I have made the Coffee and Walnut Cake and next on my list is Chocolate and Guinness Bundt Cake (especially good for me as I LOVE bundt cakes).

For this recipe I used some frozen mixed berries that I had in the freezer. I can't wait to try it with fresh berries as I think the frozen berries (while perfectly good to use), release a little too much juice which therefore means a longer cooking time and a slightly more soggy middle (on the top anyway where the berries congregated). I'm sure this could easily be made gluten free too by substituting the flour for a GF flour.


Berry, Polenta and Orange Cake (Dish Magazine Issue 37)


Cake
1/2c vegetable oil (I used grapeseed)
3 eggs
3/4c caster sugar
finely grated zest and juice of one orange
1 1/3c plain flour
2/3c ground almonds
2/3c instant polenta
2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
2c mixed frozen berries


Topping
juice of one orange
1/3c caster sugar


Preheat the oven to 150C and grease and line and loaf tin with baking paper.


Beat the oil, eggs, zest, juice and sugar together for 5 minutes. Combine the flour, polenta, almonds, salt and baking powder.


Using a large metal spoon, fold in the dry ingredients making sure there are no pockets of flour in the batter. Pour half the mixture into the tin, scatter over half the berries. Top with the remaining batter and then the berries. Bake 65-75mins until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out with a few damp crumbs attached.


To make the topping, stir the orange juice and sugar together and spoon evenly over the hot cake. Leave to cool in the tin.