Invention Kitchen - Orange Olive Oil and Polenta Cake with Thyme and Fennel Seeds

I’ve been spending way too much time on Pinterest lately (see for yourself! www.pinterest.com/tncake) and there’s an awful lot of polenta and olive oil cakes on there. I use polenta to make biscuits crumbly and roast potatoes extra crispy but not for much else. I was also intrigued by the idea of olive oil in a cake. Oil based cakes last for much longer so for those of you who tend have some left hanging around and end up throwing it away then this could be the recipe for you.  Anyway, I came up with this particular recipe because I had all the ingredients for it already in the cupboard (or the garden) and I was very pleased with the results. The fresh fennel seeds pop in your mouth when you bite onto them. I imagine you could use dried ones though, or leave them out altogether if you’re not keen. The cake itself was devoured by friends and family within 24 hours. So much for making a cake that ‘lasts’.

Ingredients:

4 eggs

8 oz. caster sugar

Zest of one orange

Zest of one lemon

8 oz. self raising flour

3 ½ oz. polenta

8 fl oz extra virgin olive oil

4-5 heads of fresh fennel seeds, seeds picked off

10-12 sprigs of thyme, a good handful anyway

1-2 tablespoons orange oil

Method:

Measure out the olive oil and strip the thyme leaves from the woody stems into the oil.  Set aside and preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4 / 180C.  Line a spring form cake tin (this cake is pretty deep, so use one of a decent size)

Using an electric whisk, or one of those brilliant but expensive mixers, beat the eggs and sugar until pale and at least doubled in volume.

Mix together all the flour, polenta and zests

Add your orange oil to the olive oil and mix

Beat in a little of the dry mixture and the oil alternately into the egg mixture

Throw in your fennel seeds and fold in to distribute.

Pour into your tin and bake for about an hour, maybe more, depending on your oven. Mine isn’t great, it took about an hour and ten minutes.

When cooked, leave in the tin for about 15 minutes before removing and leaving to cool on a rack. This cake goes really well with a dollop of Greek yoghurt.

Invention Kitchen - Lemon Rosebuds

I’m slightly obsessed with roses at the moment. The roses this year look and smell amazing and after making my rose and pistachio cake the other day I was reminded just how delicious the flavour is. I’m also a bit fed up of cake at the moment if I’m honest. We’re in the hottest summer we’ve had in seven years and it’s just to hot to eat a big whopping slice of cake so I came up with these little beauties. Makes about 20, depending on the size of your cutter.

Ingredients:

For the shortbread

5oz (125g) butter

7 ¼ oz (180g) plain flour

Zest of one lemon

1-2 teaspoons lemon juice

2 ¾ oz (65g) caster sugar

For the rose buttercream:

5oz (125g) butter

10oz (250g) icing sugar

¾ teaspoon rose flavour syrup or a couple teaspoons rose water

Few drops pink food colouring

First make the shortbread. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the lemon zest and one teaspoon of juice.

Sift in the flour and combine to form a dough. Cling wrap and put in the fridge for ½ hour. Meanwhile, stick the oven on at 170C / Gas Mark 3.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of around 5mm and cut into rounds. If you’re having difficulty rolling it out because it’s too dry then add another teaspoon of juice. Use a small cutter. Mine is about 5cm in diameter. Remember you’ll be doubling these up and putting buttercream in the middle. You don’t need them any bigger!

Put on a tray and put back in the fridge for about 15 mins. Then remove and bake in the oven for 12-15 mins.

Allow to cool on a rack and make the buttercream. Put all the ingredients in a food processor and whiz till smooth. It’s better to add your flavouring a bit at a time so you can get it right.

When your biscuits are cool, pipe the buttercream onto the underside of one biscuit and gently sandwich with another. Don’t use too much buttercream of it will smudge out of the sides and be too sickly.

If 20 are too many, don’t worry these freeze (fully assembled) perfectly. This makes them especially good for tea parties. They look very pretty stacked on top of one another on cake stands. I made some of these with my four year old (who was surprisingly good at piping!) as a present for her nursery teachers. And made decorated a box to put them in.  They were much appreciated!