Sweet Orange Polenta Cake...

Orange Polenta Cake - just after turning it out...

I’ve been meaning to try and make one of these for a while and the first attempt a couple of weeks ago was a limited success as it didn’t turn out of the tin. Still, the bits tasted nice so I’ve had another go…

Ingedients:

250 grams soft, unsalted butter

300 grams caster sugar

3 large eggs (beaten)

100 grams polenta

250 grams ground almonds

1tsp baking powder

2 oranges

icing sugar

Method:

In a bowl mix the polenta, ground almonds and baking powder.

Now get another bowl and cream the caster butter and sugar together before adding the eggs a bit at a time making sure it’s all well mixed.

Now slowly add the almond / polenta mix - add a bit at a time making sure it is well mixed as you go along.

Finally add the zest of the orange and half the juice. Mix well and put into a well greased cake tin. 180C for ~ 50 minutes.

Take out of the oven, prick the top well and add the remaining orange juice. Finally take the juice of another orange, heat in a pan and add icing sugar until no more will dissolve. Pour this over the top of the cake and allow to cool.

Once cool remove from tin.

p.s. Some of you may find this too sweet with all the icing. You could easily halve the orange and icing sugar mix (or forego the icing altogether) to have it less sweet.

p.p.s. Polenta also means it is anoth entry for this month's alphabakes hosted by Caroline of Caroline makes and Ros from The more than occasional baker.

Jambalaya....

Jambalaya...

...maybe? I don’t know if anyone else would consider this to be a true jambalaya but it’s near enough for me and tasty to boot. Rice, meat, veg and a nice dose of chilli and paprika. Mmmmmmmmmm... I’ll describe the one in the photo but it is very adaptable to whatever you happen to have hanging around.

Start off by slowly sweating off some onions in a deep frying pan. Really let these sweat down before adding some garlic and diced peppers and frying these also. Next add the meat. In this case I used some chilli sausages that were in the fridge and chopped them up into rough meatballs. Traditionally the meat is chicken or seafood but I don’t see why you can’t use whatever you want...Just remember to add some chilli if it’s not in with the meat! Add a good helping of paprika as well at this point and cook the meat out.

Once cooked add some white wine to deglaze the pan. Put in the rice and give it a good stir so the rice starts to absorb the flavour. Next add some chicken or vegetable stock to the pan and let it simmer for 20 minutes by which time the stock will be nearly all absorbed and you have a lovely tasting jambalaya.

Part way through absorbing the stock..

Whilst it is simmering I also tend to add a little bit of finely chopped veg for extra colour and texture e.g. peas, finely diced carrot. As I said earlier, it’s a good way of using up what you have in the fridge...

Finally I've added some chopped tomato and chives over the top. Delicious!

Raspberry Puffs…

...or another thing to do with left over puff pastry.

Raspberry Puffs

Having bought some ready made puff pastry for the Tarte Tartin I had a bit left over in the fridge to use. These really are very simple:

Take the pastry and cut it into approximately 2 inch squares. Liberally make holes in the centre with a fork so that the centre doesn’t rise. Leave about a 1cm margin around the edge to rise.

In the centre put some raspberry jam and on top of that place some raspberries. 

Then pop in the oven for 10-15 mins at 220C. Only having 4 in the oven these cooked a bit too quickly and are just starting to catch. Should have got them out a couple of minutes earlier!! Oh well…

Also, as puff begins with P I’ll enter them for Alphabakes hosted by Caroline of Caroline makes and Ros from The more than occasional baker.

I was going to enter a polenta cake but that turned out to be an epic fail (or didn’t turn out as the case may be…). Still, might have another crack at that later in the week.