Jalapeno Cornbread

I was in a baking mood, but couldn't really justify baking a cake when I'd got a dozen or more individual portions of cake from previous bakes laying in the freezer. Cornbread to accompany my planned batch of chilli seemed a good idea - I could satisfy my urge to bake and sort out several evening meals in one go without feeling guilty; some sort of carbohydrate was needed and it would be a tasty change from rice.

I used this recipe by Ben Mims, which has been the most successful recipe of several I've tried previously and one that Southern Living calls perfect. As I only wanted a few portions, I halved the recipe and baked it in my small cast iron skillet, which is only 16cm in diameter at the top. From previous attempts I knew that I was happier with a bit more seasoning and a tiny touch of sugar, so I added 10g of caster sugar, a teaspoon of dried oregano, a good twist of black pepper and a tablespoon of finely chopped pickled jalapeno peppers.

I think this was the best cornbread I've made so far; the texture was just what I wanted - moist but not too stodgy, but not too crumbly either. The added ingredients stopped it being bland and there were just the right amount of jalapenos to give a spicy kick, without becoming too hot. It went really well with my inauthentic chilli, which contained pork meatballs and a courgette I picked on the edge of turning to a marrow!

Carrot and Feta Loaf

 I have a great fondness for savoury cakes - in the summer they make a good addition to a meal based on salad, and in the winter they are great with vegetable soups and even hearty meat stews, if you are careful about using complimenting flavours. This delicious Carrot and Feta Loaf, from this Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe (last recipe of the three), fed me for four days, without any need to cook extra carbohydrates for my evening meals. It was good with both a potato and leek soup and a vegetable chilli, amongst other things. Hugh suggests that savoury cakes make good pre-dinner nibbles with the first glass of wine, and these recipes can also be cooked in muffin tins, making them suitable for lunch boxes.

I followed the recipe exactly, although the loaf need another 10 minutes on the baking time, before I was satisfied that it was completely cooked through (I was using a colour-changing probe to test). The only thing I would do differently, in the future, would be to bake it in a smaller tin, to get a better loaf shape. The recipe specified a 1.5litre loaf tin, but I think a standard 900ml (2lb) tin would have been better, or the 20cm tin mentioned at the top of the recipe. As you can see from my photos, I got a very shallow loaf from my baking tin, which was 30cm long and 10cm wide.


The cumin in the loaf came through quite strongly, but blended well with the dill and cheese to give a well-balanced flavour overall - both the onions and the carrots were there as background, rather than principle, flavours. The loaf was quite close textured but didn't seem too stodgy; this is definitely something to repeat.

Rhubarb, Marzipan and Citrus Cake

I've been harvesting our homegrown rhubarb since the middle of March, and this traybake recipe is perfect for the beginning of the season when there are some thin stalks to pick. If you can only get thick sticks, then I suggest you cut them into fairly thin slices, both to distribute the rhubarb evenly through the cake, and make sure it cooks properly.

I picked this Rhubarb, Marzipan and Citrus Cake recipe because I wanted something portable to take to my daughter, who was cooking a Mother's Day dinner, and also because I know she loves marzipan.

I followed the recipe exactly, although I used the zest from the whole lemon and orange, as I didn't see the point of leaving half grated fruit - this turned out to be a good move, as the citrus flavour wasn't very pronounced, even with the extra zest. I also used fine cornmeal rather than polenta, as I can only get the quick-cook sort which is relatively coarse.

What the recipe doesn't mention is that initially the cake batter seems too stiff, and although it does slacken a little when the fruit is added, it never gets to the 'dropping' stage. Resist the temptation to add more liquid -  more juices will be released from the fruit during baking.

We all loved this dessert - there were subtle citrus notes amongst the tang of the rhubarb, and the marzipan gave concentrated pockets of the sort of almond flavour you don't get from ground almonds alone. My husband reckoned it would come a close second to rhubarb crumble in his 'favourites' list!

Date, Banana and Rum Loaf

Gluten-free and dairy-free.

This Date, Banana and Rum Loaf, found on the BBC Good Food website, could be considered a healthy cake, as it has no added fat or sugar. The natural sweetness comes from almost 800g of fresh and dried fruit packed into the loaf, and the only significant fat is that which is contained in the nuts - 100g of pecans.

I was a little worried about making the cake, as some of the comments on the Good Food website said the cake was quite crumbly, but I needn't have worried. I followed the basic cake recipe closely and made a dense, very moist fruit cake, which even survived being dropped (in it's cake box); quite frankly I was amazed that just the puréed fruit, 100g of fine cornmeal and 2 egg whites made a batter that actually held everything together! In a slight departure from the recipe, I added 1/2 teaspoon of xanthan gum, as it's easy to get hold of now, although it wasn't when this recipe first appeared in 2008; I don't know if it made any difference but it couldn't have done any harm!

One other thing I did, not mentioned in the recipe, was to cut each date in half, cross-ways, before cooking them. I found two stones while doing this, so it's well worth the extra time spent, as unnoticed stones could damage food processor blades.  When I drained the cooked dates I didn't get enough liquid, so I added water to get to the 100mls needed for the recipe. I varied the topping, as I don't really like banana chips - I used the remaining pecans, chopped coarsely, and 4 crushed brown sugar cubes (optional if you don't want to add sugar).

I really enjoyed this cake, but I would leave the sugar off the topping next time. It only added a crunch when the cake was fresh, and quickly dissolved in the moisture from the cake. Unlike a lot of other recipes that rely on the natural sweetness of the ingredients, rather than adding any additional sugar, this cake did taste sweet enough. This is definitely a recipe I'll be using again!

One small criticism - sultanas and raisins are very similar in looks and taste; the cake might have been more attractive and even tastier if a different mix of dried fruit was used. Cranberries, cherries, chopped apricots and/or golden raisins could be used to replace some of the 400g of raisins and sultanas used in the loaf.

Gluten-free Cornbread

We both really like cornbread, as an occasional alternative to rice, with a chilli, but I've yet to find the perfect recipe. The biggest problem is the bread being too crumbly, then there are recipes that are too sweet and recipes that are too bland. Flavours can easily be worked on, but it's getting the right balance of dry to wet ingredients which is proving elusive (although I have to admit that this recipe, from Ben Mims seemed pretty good the first time I tried it - I just forgot about it until now!). Add into the mix, the desire for a gluten-free cornbread and things get complicated.

It's fairly widely recognised that adding some wheat flour is better than 100% cornmeal, if a light cornbread is required, but this can't be used in gluten-free baking. This recipe, found on Jamie Oliver's website, uses equal volumes of a gluten-free flour mix and cornmeal, and allows for the use of non-dairy milk, if required. The only thing I didn't like, at first glance, was the amount of sugar added, so I cut this down from  80g to 50g. I added half a teaspoon of xanthan gum, just because I had it to hand, and it's meant to replicate the effects of gluten in wheat flour ie  cuts down on the crumbliness of baked products. I also used a mix of 50% polenta and 50% fine cornmeal instead of all cornmeal.

Converted to metric weights, I used: 200g gluten-free flour, 220g cormeal/polenta mix; 50g sugar, 2 tablespoons honey, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum, 2 large eggs, 360mls milk, 75g melted butter + another 10g to grease the skillet.

The method is fairly standard - mix dry ingredients in one bowl, wet in another, melt butter. Add wet ingredients and melted butter to dry ingredients and mix until just combined (don't overmix!). Pour into a pre-heated and well-greased skillet and bake in a hot oven. I used a fan oven at 160C and found that the cornbread was cooked in 25 minutes, rather than the 30-35 minutes suggested in the recipe.

The texture of this cornbread was good, but still a little crumbly. The Ben Mims recipe uses a much higher proportion of liquid, so it shouldn't spoil this recipe to increase the amount used, although it might need an extra egg too. I thought there was still a touch too much sugar in the recipe, so will cut it down even more in future. My next attempt will be to try a version of this recipe which is dairy-free too.

Almond, Raspberry and Rose Polenta Cake

- both gluten and dairy free

This was my second attempt at this recipe; the first being this cake, where I changed both the nuts and fruit used. The outcome was delicious, but the fruit sank and spoiled the look of the cake. This time, I made even more adaptations (naughty me!) because I wanted the cake to be dairy-free as well as gluten-free, and I also didn't want to use any citrus fruit. While I was making changes, I decided to replace half the polenta with fine cornmeal, to reduce the graininess of the texture

Ingredients
225g dairy-free spread (I used Pure sunflower spread)
225g caster sugar
3 large eggs
60g fine cornmeal (not cornflour)
65g polenta (the instant kind is all I can get)
125g ground almonds
1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon rose water (or more, depending on strength*)
a few drops of almond extract*
50mls water*
200g raspberries

* The rose water, almond extract and water replaces the citrus juice and zest in the original recipe. 50mls is less than the juice of 2 lemons, but I felt the batter was too sloppy the first time I made this cake. 

I only used 1 teaspoon of rose water as the brand I use is quite concentrated. I often see recipes using a lot more, so the strength must vary from brand to brand. I once made the mistake of adding more of the Neilsen-Massey rose water, and the result was inedible because of the overpowering rose flavour.

Method
Grease and line the base of a 23cm springform tin. Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
Cream together the spread and sugar, in a large bowl, until light and fluffy.
In another bowl, mix together the cornmeal, polenta, almonds, baking powder and salt.
Add the rose water and almond extract to the fat and sugar mix, then beat in the eggs, one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the dry ingredients with each egg.
Fold in the rest of the dry ingredients, in portions, alternating with a splodge of the water, until all ingredients are added.
Let the batter stand for 5 minutes (I was distracted by a phone call at this point, and the batter thickened a little while I was away - I think this may be an advantage, so I'll be adding this stage to the recipe in future!).
Spread half the batter in the baking tin, then sprinkle with half the raspberries (I used the small and broken fruit in the middle). Gently spread over the remaining batter, then arrange the rest of the raspberries on top, spacing them evenly.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and just firm in the centre (I use a colour-changing cake tester, as a probe isn't always reliable when there's fresh fruit in  a cake).
Cool the cake in the tin, and if desired, dust with icing sugar before serving.

I think this cake is one of the best gluten and dairy free cakes I've ever made, and possibly the most delicious seasonal fresh fruit cake I've eaten this summer! That's really saying something, because, as you know, I'm quite critical of my baking and can usually find something wrong.

Unfortunately, I was taking this cake to a friend's house for lunch, and only managed to photograph the cake still in it's baking tin, and the leftovers, so for such a great cake, I'm not showing it at it's best! As you can see, though, the fruit didn't all sink (hooray - main objective achieved!).

The rose flavour was subtle and well balanced against that of the raspberries and almonds. The addition of a few drops of almond extract really brought out the flavour of the nuts - sometimes ground almonds on their own don't have a very strong flavour, which is OK if you're just interested in adding moisture and texture, but not good enough if you want a cake to taste of almonds. The texture was good too - moist, but still quite light, with an even close crumb, and not too gritty from the polenta. I think the only improvement I could make would be to add another 50g of fruit - 200g in such a large cake is quite sparsely distributed.

Late decision - rather than miss the next round of Formula 1 Foods, run by Caroline, from Caroline Makes, because I will be on holiday for most of the first half of September, I will enter this cake. The next F1 GP race takes place in Italy, during the first weekend in September. Almonds and polenta seem to crop up frequently in Italian cake recipes, so this could be said to be an Italian inspired cake, although I'm not sure raspberries and rose flavour really fits the bill! It's this or nothing, Caroline!

Another late decision - as this is by far the best cake I've made for ages, I'm also adding it to the Simply Eggcellent link-up over at Belleau Kitchen. Dom's theme this month is cakes, so I'm looking forward to seeing all the entries and getting some new ideas!

Cheddar and Jalapeno Cornbread,

made with Quark.

I love the AlphaBakes challenge, where we are asked to cook something using a randomly chosen letter of the alphabet, as either the starting letter of a principle ingredient (eg B for bacon), or as part of the name of the dish (eg B for Battenburg Cake). Admittedly, some letters of the alphabet prove more difficult than others, but that's all part of the fun.

Last time the letter Q came around I made a cake using quinoa, which had a fairly unpleasant texture and didn't go on my list of things worth making again; this time I intended to play it safer with a quiche. Except every time I suggested quiche for dinner, my husband vetoed the idea, so I had to think again. Quark seemed the next best idea, and while searching for recipes I came across this cornbread recipe from The Fabulous Baker Brothers.

This is a luxury version of cornbread, compared to recipes I've tried before. It contains lots of cheese, sweetcorn kernels, onion and jalapeno peppers for flavour, and uses quark instead of the sour cream or buttermilk more usually found in cornbread recipes.

This was a straightforward recipe to follow, but my batter was very dry and I needed to add a few tablespoons of milk to give a stiff dropping consistency. The cooked cornbread was quite dry and crumbly, so it wouldn't have hurt to make the batter a little sloppier. The cornbread also took a lot longer to cook than the 40 minutes the recipe suggested - I think mine was in the oven for a touch over an hour!

We both really liked this - it was very cheesey, and well spiced with the jalapenos, which I had chopped quite finely. Most cornbread recipes contain a proportion of wheat flour, which I think lightens the sponge texture; this one was all cornmeal, and also contained coarsely puréed sweetcorn kernels, so it was quite dense. It definitely needed more liquid in the batter though, to reduce the crumbliness a little.

We ate the cornbread, still warm, with a spicy ratatouille. The following night we ate it with a pork and bean chilli, but after two meals I'd only used half the cornbread, so I had to freeze the rest. I hope it doesn't become even more crumbly in the freezer.

This cornbread also fits the brief for Dom's Simply Eggcellent challenge over at Belleau Kitchen. This month he wanted our savoury recipes using eggs. While eggs are not the principle ingredient of a cornbread, it's almost impossible to make any sort of cake without eggs, so I think it's OK to submit this recipe.








AlphaBakes is co-hosted by Ros, at The More Than Occasional Baker and Caroline, at Caroline Makes. This month's challenge, using the letter Q, is hosted by Ros, who will be posting a round-up of entries at the end of the month.

Cornbread with Green Chillies

Although I've liked the flavour of cornbread that I've made in the past, I've never been really happy with it - the dry crumbly texture can make it  faintly unpleasant to eat sometimes. Nearly all the recipes I've looked at use a very similar proportion of liquids to dry ingredients, so perhaps that's the way cornbread is supposed to be, but I wanted to make something with a softer, more cakey texture.

I wasn't having much luck until I came across a reference in Felicity Cloake's 'How to Cook the Perfect Cornbread' article in the Guardian. She wrote "....food writer Ben Mims, also Mississippi-born, uses equal parts of flour and cornmeal in a recipe judged by the Southern Living test kitchen, no less, as 'perfect'.", although she went on to say that she preferred a denser, more crumbly cornbread. When I checked the recipe, not only did this recipe use half wheat flour, it also had a higher proportion of liquids than most other recipes I'd seen. This seemed worth a try.

During several attempts at cornbread, based on Ben Mims' recipe, I made a few changes - some out of necessity, some just because of a whim! The nearest thing I could find to coarse cornmeal was polenta. Even though Felicity Cloake's article warned against instant polenta and my packet said it was 100% pre-cooked, which made it sound instant, I decided it would have to do. I used a mixture of full fat natural yogurt and semi-skimmed milk instead of buttermilk (and a slightly lower proportion of liquid to dry ingredients), and a mix of chilli-infused oil and butter instead of all butter. The butter was only melted, rather than browned, but was still poured into the batter while hot. Finally, I add a finely chopped, de-seeded, green chilli.

As I was only cooking for two, I halved the recipe, and cooked it in a six-hole silicone shallow bun tray. I do have a small skillet, but I calculated it would be too small - after seeing how much the cornbread rises, I think it would be OK to use, and should give a better crust, as the batter is best poured into a hot pan.

So, I used 105g polenta, 45g plain flour, 1/2 tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, 1/8 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda and 1 finely chopped green chilli, mixed together in a large bowl. In a measuring jug, I mixed 150ml full fat natural yogurt, 50mls semi-skimmed milk, 1 large egg and 1 tablespoon of chilli-infused oil.

The wet ingredients were mixed quickly into the dry mix, followed by 45g melted butter (still hot). The batter was divided between six moulds and baked at 220C, until risen and firm - about 15 minutes.

The texture of these were just right - soft, still moist but not too dense but I still need to work on the seasoning, as the flavour was a little bland. Although I picked a recipe which didn't use any sugar, I think a small amount, say a tablespoon or so, might have improved things, and a bit more salt is probably needed too.

Citrus Cornmeal Cake

This is another simple cake, along the lines of a pound cake, made with olive oil rather than butter. The cake batter is flavoured with orange zest and juice, and lemon zest. To increase the sunny yellow colour, which isn't as good in the photo as in real life, I replaced 1/3 of the flour in this recipe from Mark Hix with fine cornmeal. I also made a small amount of lemon syrup with the juice of the lemon and 2 tablespoons of sugar, to pour over the hot cake, which increased the lemony flavour.

I used an 8" round tin which was almost filled with the batter, giving some cause for concern. It did mean the finished cake was nice and deep though. Using the smallest suggested tin meant the cake took a few minutes longer to cook than suggested in the recipe - I think it was in the oven for nearer to 55 minutes, before I was satisfied that the centre was cooked, and I had to cover it with foil for the last 15 minutes. It sunk slightly in the centre, but not because of under-baking - there was no change in texture through the cake, which was very light. There were arguments here as to the stronger flavour - some thought it was a lemon cake, but the orange flavour was the stronger one for others.

I kept the cake plain, because I wanted to serve it as a dessert as well as a cake, but the lemon juice could have been used to make a glacé icing rather than a syrup. As a dessert, I served it with rhubarb and thick Greek yogurt again; I'm making the most of my home grown rhubarb!

Cornbread, with chillies and cheese

I've never eaten cornbread before, but I'd bought a pack of finely ground yellow cornmeal from the supermarket - just because it was there - and had no idea what to do with it! I often buy new products on the spur of the moment, on the grounds that they might not be in stock for long, especially if there's no demand for it - I've read that supermarkets sometimes only trial new products for two or three weeks before deciding whether to stock it permanently.

A planned meal of chilli con carne seemed an ideal opportunity to use the cornmeal and try cornbread. The first problem was the wide diversity of recipes online. Which is more traditional? Which do I already have the ingredients for? How sweet  do I want it be (The answer is 'not very'!!)? How large a batch do I want to make? And, most importantly - whose recipe could I trust?

I had just settled for a very simple cornbread from Martha Stewart, which used only storecupboard ingredients (no need to shop especially for yogurt or buttermilk), when I read a reply to the post I'd put on one of the messageboards I frequent, which recommended this recipe. This was similar to the Martha Stewart recipe in it's proportions, but added a little fat. So I decided to add some oil to Martha's recipe; then things got out of control, and I added some chopped hot chillies from a jar of preserved chillies and some grated strong cheddar cheese.

I'd also read that cornbread gets a crisp crust if the batter is poured into a pre-heated and greased skillet, so I used a 24cm (9.5") non-stick skillet pan, which I heated on the hob with about 25g of butter, before pouring in the batter.

By this time I felt as if I'd got a recipe to call my own, so here it is!

Ingredients
130g plain flour
130g fine cornmeal
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
250mls semi-skimmed milk
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
50g strong cheddar cheese, finely grated*
4 small preserved hot chillies (fresh would also be good), seeds removed and finely chopped*
25g unsalted butter

*in my opinion, more of both of these additions are needed to get a good flavour - I will double both next time, with due regard to the varying heat of chillies..

Method
Preheat the oven to 220C (200C fan).
Put the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl and whick together to mix evenly.
Measure out the milk into a jug, add the eggs and oil and whisk together.
Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mix and stir quickly to amalgamate. As with muffins, don't bother too much if it looks lumpy.
Heat the butter in a 24cm skillet, until it is hot and foaming.
While this is happening, quickly mix the grated cheese and the chopped chillies into the batter, then pour it onto the foaming butter.
Turn off the heat and transfer the skillet to the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden, and a cocktail stick comes out clean.
Serve immediately, cut into wedges.

The reaction to this cornbread was mixed. Hubs and I ate it as the only accompaniment to the chilli con carne, and he preferred it to having our usual rice. I thought it was a little dry and bland, so the recipe needs more work, but liked having it as a change to rice. I can't say I preferred it, though; it was strange eating the chilli on it's own, without some rice with every spoonful. I can imagine cornbread being a better accompaniment to soups. CT and new taster, FB (first born daughter, living at home for a while) both liked it, but thought it was strange eating it alongside chilli and rice, although they didn't want to do without the rice! Overall, I can see this being on the menu occasionally, but not as a permanent replacement for rice with a chilli!

Christmas Lunch

The desserts for Christmas lunch were a bit of a mixed bag! The Mocha Torte was a great success - due in part to a topping of popping candy, which provided much merriment. My mincepies were fine, although one or two were a bit heavy on pastry, due to my inability to roll pastry evenly. The disaster was the the Clementine and Saffron Cake - nothing wrong with the flavour but the texture was dense and heavy. I've no idea what went wrong, as I've made this sort of cake  - with whole boiled fruit - very successfully in the past!

I've no idea where the recipe for the Mocha Torte came from - it was passed to me by a friend, and I changed it slightly, so I think it's OK to pass it on unattributed. It consists of a light gelatine based mousse (no cream) on a biscuit base, with a topping of shards of chocolate covered popping candy. Sorry about the rough photo - I forgot to take one until it had been served!

Mocha Torte

Ingredients

Base

200g plain chocolate digestive biscuits
100g melted butter

Mousse

150g plain chocolate - at least 70% 

4 large eggs

4 fl oz (just over 100mls) strong black coffee, made with 2 teaspoons instant coffee, still hot

1 fl oz (about 2 tablespoons) Tia Maria

100g caster sugar

6 sheets of leaf gelatine, soaked in cold water to soften
4 fl oz (just over 100mls)just boiled water to dissolve gelatine after soaking

Chocolate Covered Popping Candy
100g plain chocolate - see link
25ml flavourless oil
50g popping candy

Method

Crush biscuits and add the melted butter, mix well and press firmly into a 23cm (9") round deep springform tin. Refrigerate to cool.

Melt chocolate carefully over a bowl of hot water.

Beat egg yolks and sugar in processor (or with a hand mixer) until pale and smooth.

Pour in hot coffee and Tia Maria and re process, while whizzing slowly pour in dissolved gelatine.

Blend in the melted chocolate and allow mixture to cool for 20- 30 mins.

Whisk egg whites until quite stiff then fold into the chocolate mixture.

Pour on top of biscuit base and leave to cool and set.

Decorate with chocolate covered popping candy made following this method from Heston Blumenthal. I made it without the spices, which I didn't think would compliment the coffee flavour.

I'll skip over the Clementine, Saffron and Polenta Cake, except to say that I was following this recipe from Waitrose. I think my mistake was to try to make it nut free. I used SR flour instead of ground almonds. I did look at various recipes online, and found several of this sort which used flour, so I didn't expect it to turn out so badly. It was just about edible - most people tried a sliver out of politeness and my mother took home half of what was leftover to eat warm with custard!

The mincepies were made with my standard  sweet shortcrust pastry recipe, with the addition of the finely grated zest of an orange. Here's the pastry recipe, but I don't think there's any need to tell you how to make mincepies. This amount of pastry, plus one standard jar of mincemeat makes 24 mincepies, for me, but obviously the size of your mincepie moulds and how thinly you roll the pastry will make a difference.

Sweet Shortcrust Pastry: 500g SR flour; 250g butter, or a mixture of butter and lard; 75g icing sugar; zest of one medium orange; 1 large egg; cold water to mix. Rub the fat into the flour, sift in the icing sugar and mix in the orange zest. Add the egg and enough cold water to make a soft but not sticky dough. Knead briefly, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 20 minutes before use. The use of SR flour and some lard makes the pastry soft and crumbly.

Orange and Rosemary Polenta Cake

It's officially mid-summer, if you go by the lunar calendar - yesterday was the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Once again we've had pretty unseasonal weather here - some really cold days with north winds, but yesterday was one of those warm days which make you think of summer cooking - lighter flavours and seasonal ingredients. I'm a bit hampered by the Chief Tester here, as he doesn't like much summer fruit, so there's no point baking it into anything I expect him to eat. The next best thing would be a cake to eat with some of the fruit from the garden, and it would make it really seasonal if it could include some of the herbs we have growing at the moment.

A long search online, using various ideas for herby cakes eventually turned up this Cornmeal Rosemary Cake with Orange Glaze from the blog Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Punch. I didn't really want to put the glaze on top, if I was going to use it as a dessert cake, but otherwise it fitted the bill perfectly - basic ingredients and flavours that the CT would eat, and it used a herb which I had growing in abundance. I've never used rosemary in sweet baking but was willing to take a chance on it.

I did a quick conversion to metric weights, and followed the slightly unusual method for the cake exactly.

Ingredients: 200g plain flour; 100g polenta; 35g pine nuts (toasted and coarsely chopped); 1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary leaves; 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1/4 teaspoon salt; 165g cream cheese; 4 eggs; 270g sugar; 115g unsalted butter, melted.

For the syrup to brush over the cake I used the juice of one large orange and 2 tablespoons of sugar, and after heating, I left 3 small sprigs of rosemary infusing in the syrup while the cake cooked.

I left the cake in it's springform tin while I slowly poured the syrup over the top, as brushing seemed too tedious for the volume of syrup to apply. This was a bit of a mistake as it was then difficult to get the cake off the base, as the top was so sticky (the rosemary sprigs in the photo are an attempt to hide where the surface came away on my fingers). There didn't seem to be excess syrup seeping from the cake so I think putting the cake on a plate first (as advised) would have been better.

This recipe made quite a shallow cake, with a light, close texture. Even after adding the syrup to moisten the cake it was still quite light. I'm always surprised that using polenta doesn't affect the colour of cakes more. It was only 1/3 polenta and 2/3 flour, but I still expected a more yellow colour. I had chopped the rosemary really finely so the tiny specks of green don't show up as well in the photograph as the toasted pine nuts.

This is a really well flavoured cake, which I will certainly be making again - perhaps adding the orange glaze to make it a tea-time cake. The orange was the predominant flavour, with occasional bursts of the more pungent flavour of the rosemary coming through. The pine nuts added more to the texture than the flavour - perhaps a stronger flavoured nut would have been better, but pine nuts add to the overall Mediterranean feel to the cake and give a nice crunch.

After the event, I traced the original recipe through Fine Cooking, where I don't have a membership, so couldn't read the recipe, to Once Upon a Plate. Here I found out that the original Tom Douglas recipe used mascarpone cheese, rather than cream cheese - a possible improvement for the future. I was also slightly out in my conversion of the polenta and cream cheese, using a little less polenta and more cream cheese than specified - it didn't seem to affect things greatly.

Rhubarb and Blackberry Cornmeal Cake

So, after spending all Saturday afternoon making a curry, on Sunday afternoon it was back to baking.

I was torn by indecision - my rhubarb is still growing strongly, but I'd also picked some more blackberries on Sunday morning and it seemed a shame to freeze them all. Whichever I used, the weather was too warm to want a hot dessert, so crumbles and pies were out. The only solution was to try them together in a fresh fruit cake.

I'd already earmarked Nigella Lawson's recipe for Rhubarb Cornmeal Cake (from 'How to be a Domestic Goddess') to try, so this seemed like a good opportunity. I wasn't sure about using cinnamon which I'd seen in some online recipes (I don't have the book, so don't know if Nigella uses it or if it's crept in while being moved around the internet) with either the rhubarb or the blackberries, and one review of the recipe found the flavour overwhelmed that of the fruit, so I decided to reduce both the flour and polenta by 25g each and add 50g ground almonds, leaving out the cinnamon completely.




Ingredients:

250g blackberries
250g rhubarb, sliced in 1cm slices
300g caster sugar
125g butter, at room temperature
125g plain flour
130g fine cornmeal (I used instant polenta)
50g ground almonds
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g natural yogurt (mine was low fat)

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180C, 160C fan, Gas 4. Grease a 23cm springform tin, and base-line with baking parchment.

Put the fruit into a glass bowl and sprinkle with 100g of the caster sugar. Don't leave for more than 30 minutes, or too much liquid will be drawn out of the fruit.

Mix the flour, cornmeal, ground almonds and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl.

In a large bowl cream the butter and remaining 200g of caster sugar, until well mixed. As there is more sugar than butter, it won't get as light and fluffy as when making a sponge cake.

Add the vanilla extract, then beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the flour mix with each egg.

Using a metal spoon, fold in the rest of the dry ingredients, alternately with portions of the yogurt. Don't overmix at this stage, mix until the ingredients are just blended.

Finally, fold in the fruit, with the sugar and any juice which has accumulated in the bottom of the bowl.

Put the cake batter into the prepared tin and level the surface. Bake for 1 hour, covering after 40 minutes if it's getting too brown. A test probe should be clean of any wet cake batter, but note that if the probe goes through a piece of fruit, it may still appear wet.

Cool for 20 minutes on a wire rack before removing the sides of the tin.

Although an electric mixer makes this cake easier, I think it could easily be made with just a spoon, as long as the butter is really soft, as the creaming stage isn't as important as for lighter cakes.



The finished cake was a little disappointing; there wasn't much wrong with the flavour and texture, but I didn't like the way all the fruit had sunk to the bottom. This isn't a huge problem, especially if the cake is being used as a dessert, but it does spoil the appearance a little. I haven't notice other reviewers complain about this, so I wonder if using low fat yogurt has made a difference? As for the flavour, the almonds weren't really noticeable and maybe a little spice or other flavouring would have been a good addition - certainly if I try the cake again, with a single fruit, I will add some appropriate flavouring.
Using the two fruits together wasn't perhaps my best idea either. Neither flavour predominated, but it was hard to tell which fruits had been used, going by flavour alone. It makes me wonder whether the traditionalists have it right and that only some fruit combinations are 'right', such as blackberries and apples, or rhubarb and strawberries, and that doing something unconventional doesn't bring about any benefits.
Monday pm - after a slice of the now completely cold cake for lunch, I've revised my opinion a bit. The flavour of both fruits are more evident now than when the cake was eaten still slightly warm, yesterday, and it seems much better for that. However, cold, it's even more of a pity that all the fruit is at the bottom - it makes two distinct layers, which I'm sure wasn't the intention.