Summer Berry Polenta Cake

SWEET.
SHARP.
MOIST (SORRY!)

SWEET.SHARP.MOIST (SORRY!)

  • Gluten-Free!

When you present someone with a polenta cake, usually the first thing they’ll say is: “What’s polenta?”.
“Delicious!” is the reply that springs to mind, though if you want to be more technical it’s actually ground maize (ie. corn)!

Known as cornmeal in America, it’s been used in baking there for centuries, primarily in cornbread, though it doesn’t appear as often in bakes over here.

So I say, let’s change that now!
This recipe is actually takes a trick from Italian baking, substituting the regular wheat flour you know and love for ground almonds and polenta, making it naturally gluten-free while still providing a lovely sponge texture!
When combined with fresh raspberries and slightly sharp summer berries, this is a taste of summer perfectly suited for an afternoon sitting in the sunshine (should you be so lucky!).

In a hurry? Then here’s your recipe!

If you like to see some more tips and tricks, then scroll away for a bit of light reading!

Summer Berry Polenta Cake
Print

Summer Berry Polenta Cake

Recipe by Tom FletcherCuisine: CakeDifficulty: Easy
Servings

12

servings
Prep time

1

hour 
Cooking time

1

hour 

15

minutes

Ingredients

  • For the cake:

  • 140g fresh raspberries

  • 150g unsalted butter, softened

  • 150g caster sugar

  • 3 medium eggs

  • 1/2 tsp almond extract

  • 180g ground almonds

  • 90g fine polenta

  • 1.5 tsp baking powder (gluten-free)

  • For the drizzle:

  • 60g frozen summer fruits (though you can use fresh if you have them!)

  • 50g caster sugar

  • For the buttercream:

  • 100g frozen summer fruits (again, you can use fresh if you have them)

  • 40g caster sugar

  • 125g unsalted butter, softened

  • 125g icing sugar

  • 1/2 tsp almond extract

  • For decoration:

  • Frozen or fresh summer berries (I used fresh raspberries and blueberries, but frozen redcurrants and blackcurrants)

  • 2 tbsp of raspberry jam

  • Equipment:

  • 2lb loaf tin, lined

  • Pastry brush

Directions

  • Preheat the oven to 160C / 140C fan / Gas Mark 3.
  • Rinse the rapsberries and pat them dry with some paper towel, before cutting them into quarters.
  • In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light, fluffy and pale in colour.
  • Add the beaten egg to the mixture a small amount at a time, beating until combined between each addition.
  • Add the almond extract and beat until combined.
  • Add the ground almonds, polenta and baking powder to the batter and beat gently until combined.
  • Tip the quartered raspberries into the batter and gently fold in until combined. Add the mixture to the cake tin.
  • Bake in the middle shelf of the oven for 1 hour 15 mins, or until the centre of cake springs back when lightly pressed with a finger. A skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should also come out clean.
  • Once baked, allow the cake to cool in the tin for 10 mins, before removing and placing onto a cooling rack.
  • For the drizzle:
  • You should start making the drizzle just after you have removed the cake from the oven. That will allow you to pour it over the cake while the cake is warm!
  • Place the berries and caster sugar into a small saucepan and place over a low heat until the berries defrost and release their juices. As the berries defrost, you can use a potato masher or wooden spoon to help break them down.
  • Place a sieve over a heatproof bowl and strain the contents of the pan through it, leaving you with a clean syrup in the bowl.
  • Once your cake is on the cooling rack, use a skewer to poke lots of holes down into your cake and pour the drizzle over it. The holes should help the drizzle soak down through the cake. Allow the cake to finish cooling and for the top of the cake to dry before decorating.
  • For the buttercream:
  • Place the berries and caster sugar into a small saucepan and place over a low heat until the berries defrost and release their juices. As the berries defrost, you can use a potato masher or wooden spoon to help break them down.
  • Place a sieve over a heatproof bowl and strain the contents of the pan through it, leaving you with a clean syrup in the bowl. Place this to one side to cool.
  • In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until it is light, fluffy and much paler in colour, nearly white.
  • Sift half of the icing sugar into the bowl and beat until combined. Repeat this for the remaining half of the icing sugar.
  • Add the almond extract and cooled fruit syrup to the bowl and beat to combine. If your buttercream is a little too soft to pipe at this point, you can place it in the fridge to firm up a little.
  • To decorate:
  • Allow the berries you wish to use to top your cake to defrost. If using fresh fruit instead, rinse the fruit and pat it dry with paper towel.
  • Place the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a large open star nozzle. Holding the piping bag at 45 degree angle to the top of the cake, pipe a blob of buttercream at one of the edges, dragging the piping bag towards the centre of the cake as you do so to pipe a "shell". Repeat this all around the top edge of the cake, forming a frilly looking border.
  • Fill the centre of your buttercream border with more buttercream. If you are topping the cake with fruit, it doesn't really matter how you pipe this on, but I tend to pipe rosettes as they cover a larger surface area of your cake without using huge amounts of icing!
  • Add the fruit you prepared earlier to this central section of the cake, leaving the original buttercream border untouched.
  • Warm the raspberry jam gently in a small saucepan until it thins enough to be brushable, adding water a teaspoon at a time to help it along if required. Brush this thinned jam over the fruit to glaze!

Which polenta should I use a-grain?

The most confusing thing you'll encounter when first baking with polenta is that there are a myriad of different types available. But what's the difference between coarse and fine? Uncooked or instant? And which should you be using in your bakes?

In this recipe, I use fine, instant polenta. The term "fine" refers to how well ground the meal is; fine polenta has a consistency similar to flour, while coarse polenta, being made up of larger grains, will have more of a bite to it when cooked, which isn't really what we want in a cake.
"Instant" polenta is precooked cornmeal, so takes a lot less time to cook and soften up than any uncooked variety would. Using this in the cake batter will help ensure that the polenta is cooked through by the time the cake is baked, preventing grainy textures within the sponge.

In the photo above, you can see an example of the type of polenta I use, should you want to compare it to whatever you have at home!

Trust your instincts!

Although this recipe may seem unusual, using ground almonds and polenta instead of flour, there's no need to be apprehensive! In fact, the process you need to follow is the same as any other cake you'd make using the creaming method!
You still start the process by incorporating as much air as you can into your mixture, creaming the butter and sugar together and beating in the eggs pretty vigorously.
Likewise, you'll still want to fold the dry ingredients into the batter until just combined, rather than beating with any sort of force. In cakes containing flour, we do this partly to prevent excessive amounts of gluten from building up in the batter, which can make a cake turn out slightly dense and gluey, rather than light and fluffy.
In this recipe, however, there's no gluten involved, so why do we still need to be careful? Well, as you beat, fold and generally interfere with the ground almonds, they'll start to release oils, which in moderation can provide a lovely moist texture in your final bake, but in excessive amounts can turn your light, airy batter into more of a butter!

So in summary, follow the rules of great cake baking and you’ll end up with a great polenta cake! Shocker, eh!

Take a cut!

In this recipe, we chop the raspberries into quarters. Simple enough, right? But why not leave them whole, or release your inner sushi chef and finely dice them into oblivion?
Well, there's a couple of reasons for that! Firstly, if the berries are too large, they tend to be too heavy for the cake batter and will sink! You may have seen tips online explaining that you can toss the berries in flour before adding them to the batter to prevent them sinking, which is all well and good unless you're making a gluten-free cake like this one, where you can't introduce wheat flour into your cake. The simplest solution, then, is to give them rough chop before adding them to the cake and avoid sinkage entirely!

On the other hand, you don’t really want to dice the berries too finely, as they have a tendency to break down and disappear into your cake as it bakes! Even when cut into quarters they tend to reduce down quite a bit, so you wouldn’t really want to go any smaller than that. 

In my recipes, I’ll usually give a suggestion for how to cut the fruit you are baking with anyway, but these tips could be worth bearing in mind should you be creating a recipe of your own!

If this has put you on the path to polenta cake-ness, I hope you enjoy! If you have any questions, feel free to ask below!

Also, if you’re social media savvy, tag me on Instagram at @toofarfletched with your creations!

-Tom 😁

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Tom

Hi! Thanks for stopping by!

I set up this site to share with you everything I love about baking, so hopefully there’ll be something here you enjoy too!

If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to use the links below!

Come Be Social!

Instagram Envelope

Enjoyed This?
Then Try These!

Latest Posts!

Instagram
Instagram

Privacy Policy

Summer Berry Polenta Cake