Two things I love: Italians and polenta. Mix them together and you get cake!
This is a drop dead gorgeous recipe which has a course texture (like an unshaven Italian movie star) and the secret ingredient of olive oil and dessert wine. I was inspired by a Julia Busuttil recipe I saw on Tasty Tuesday and decided to try out this traditional Italian recipe on the crew of a short film I catered for recently. The cupcakes disappeared faster than the director could say “cut”. And I like to think that the entire film was a success because of them!
Pear and Polenta cake:
(preheat oven to 180C)
- 180g almonds
- 1 pear
- 80g plain flour
- 180g coarse polenta
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3 eggs
- 120g caster sugar
- 130ml olive oil
- 1 orange: juice, and zest
Vin Santo syrup:
- 40g caster sugar
- 80ml Vin Santo wine
- pinch salt
Method:
- Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin.
- In a food processor, grind up the almonds and pear.
- In a large bowl, mix together the ground almonds and pear, flour, polenta, and baking powder. Stir to combine and set aside.
- In another bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until pale and creamy.
- Continue beating and slowly add the oil, orange juice and zest until all are combined.
- Add in the dry ingredients and mix well.
- Bake until golden (approximately 25 min).
- Cook up the syrup by placing all the ingredients on a pot on the stove, bring to the boil, stir continually until the sugar has been dissolved, allow to simmer for a few minutes until it has thickened slightly.
- Drizzle over the cake while still warm so that it seeps in.
- Dust with a dash of icing sugar or orange zest.
- Serve with mascarpone and watch the first installment of The Godfather.
