The Weekend Bake: Citrus, Polenta and Ricotta Cake

As soon as I saw these gorgeous photos and recipe pop up on my Pinterest feed, I knew that this cake and I were destined to meet.

We had a glut of limes leftover from a splurge when we saw they were only $2 for 5 (as opposed to the usual $1-2 per lime); so as well as the lemon I added lime juice, in addition to some other minor adjustments like the sugar used and adding a honey glaze at the end to bump up the moisture of the cake.

The resulting recipe looked like this:

Citrus, Polenta & Ricotta Cake, adapted from The Sassy Cook

Makes 12 medium (or 9 super-sized) slices.

Ingredients

• 1 cup fine ‘instant’ polenta
• 2 cups almond meal (I used meal ground from whole almonds, not blanched)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 200ml full fat coconut milk
• 3/4 cup rapadura (unrefined cane sugar)
• 3 eggs
• Rind of 2 lemons, zested
• 125ml citrus juice (I used lemon and lime, I’m sure orange would go down well in this recipe too)
• 250g ricotta – chop these down into smallish (1-2cm) chunks so they’re easy to fold through later without mixing too thoroughly
• 2 tbsp honey, for a post-bake drizzle

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 160°C
• Grease or line a 20cm cake tin (round or square – your choice!). I also greased my tin, but might line it with baking paper next time round to reduce the browning on the sides of the cake.
• In one bowl, combine polenta, almond meal, baking powder and salt
• In another bowl, add the eggs and beat with a whisk, add the sugar and beat again until fluffy and well combined
• Add the coconut milk, citrus juice and zest to the “wet” bowl and combine
• Add the dry to the wet and mix through gently until just combined. At this stage, don’t be alarmed by how runny the mix is – the ricotta makes all the difference!
• Fold through the ricotta gently – it should be evenly spread through the mix, but still a little chunky

• Pour into cake tin and smooth top gently
• Bake for 40 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean.
• Let the cake stand for 5 mins, then turn it out onto a cooling rack.
• At this point I wanted to supercharge the moisture in the cake, so I warmed 2 tbsp of honey in the microwave for about 20 seconds, then drizzled it over the cake as evenly as possible. I then let the cake sit and cool.

As I used rapadura instead of white sugar and whole almond meal, I also found the cake wasn’t as vibrant as shown in the original – so I succumbed and jazzed it up a little with a light dusting of icing sugar.

Serve with a generous dollop of Creme Fraiche, yoghurt, or double cream.  The rest of the cake then went into the freezer for future breakfasts on-the-go.