Apricot Polenta Cake – The Food Matters Project

I am so excited because this week I am hosting the Food Matter’s Project recipe. There are so many recipes I wanted to try and I had already picked out some savory dishes. Then I looked at my kitchen and changed my mind. A lot of my kitchen utensils are already packed up but I did keep my baking stuff out.

I once made a polenta cake from one of my Jamie Oliver books and loved it. So this week’s Apricot Polenta cake does not come as a surprise. At least not to my husband’s who went for a run to make room for the cake.

Check out what other people baked this week on The Food Matters Project Homepage

Apricot Polenta Cake

Mark Bittman

1/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup coarse cornmeal

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs, separated

3 tablespoon orange juice

1 cup chopped apricots

Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Heat the oven to 350F. Grease an 8 or 9 inch baking pan with a little oil. Put the cornmeal and salt in a saucepan, slowly whisking in 1 1/4 cups water. Bring the pot almost to boil. Reduce the heat to low and whisk frequently until the polenta thickened. This took only a couple of minutes in my case. Let the polenta cool down slightly.

Combine the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Beat 1/3 cup of oil with the sugar until creamy then add the egg yolks. Mix in the polenta until you have a smooth batter. Now mix in the dry ingredients plus the orange juice and apricots until well blended.

In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until foamy. Gently add them to the batter. Turn the batter into your pan and bake for approx. 35min or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool down in a pan.

Mine looked a bit rustic due to the egg whites. So it may not win an award for smooth and straight looking cake of the year but you can easily fix that. I had a bit of cream left in the fridge and zested a lemon and spread the lemon zest-cream on top of my cake.

This cake is wonderful! I do love dried apricot and already plan on making the cake again but this time with dried cherries. It keeps very well in the fridge and stays moist and yummy for almost a week. My husband and I took a small slice with our afternoon tea/coffee every day.

I do miss this cake already….