Orange and Polenta Cake

Hi everyone!
Today I baked an Orange and Polenta cake.  It contains no flour or wheat products so would be perfect for people with a gluten intolerance.

Fresh out of the oven!

Delicious!

The recipe is from Delicious magazine (I have the "Sweet" cookbook which is a compilation of dessert and cake recipes from the magazine), although, I used a slightly different method of making the syrup.

- To begin, place two large oranges (I used naval oranges because they have no seeds) into a pot and cover with water.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer for an hour (you may need to top up the water, so the oranges stay almost covered in water).
- Remove the oranges from the pan and whiz them in the food processor or Bamix.  Reserve about 100-150ml of the boiling liquid.
- Allow the orange puree to cool down a little (you don't want to end up with scrambled eggs when you add the eggs in).  I transferred the puree to a mixing bowl at this point because I was using the processor attachment of the Bamix which is quite small, but if you are using a food processor you could leave it in there and add the rest of the ingredients in the processor.
- Add 6 eggs, 150g of polenta, 150g of almond meal and 250g of caster sugar.  The recipe also called for 1tsp of chopped fresh rosemary, however I omitted this as our rosemary bush died a while ago (I didn't know this so I hadn't bought any).
- Grease and line a 23cm springform pan (just line the base, not the sides).
- Pour the mixture into the pan, sprinkle some demerara sugar (or coffee crystals if you don't have demerara sugar) over the top and bake at 180C for about1 hour (mine needed about 10 minutes extra time in the oven).

 - Cool for a few minutes in the tin before turning onto a plate.

 - To make the syrup, add half a cup of caster sugar to the orange water and stir over a low heat until the sugar dissolves.  Bring to a boil and boil without stirring for about 5 minutes or until the syrup thickens.  Add in a dash of orange flavoured liquer (e.g. Cointreau).  The recipe used plain water and added orange zest, but I decided to use the boiling liquid as that has a lovely orange flavour in it already, so I didn't want to waste it.

 - Drizzle the syrup over the top and serve.  It can be served warm or cold.  When the syrup cools it forms a lovely crunchy crust over the top.  It also reheats well in the microwave.

Thanks for reading!