Hey there food fans!
Welcome back to my recipe blog.
It's been another couple of weeks of food related shenanigans for me. The bank holiday weekend started with a bang on Friday as, once again I was helping out "doctor of meat" Andy Stubbs with his stall at the Digbeth Dining Club's second birthday bash. It was a brilliant event with around 12 traders selling their delicious wares to around 3000 hungry punters. The weather stayed fine, every stall was busy all night and a good time was had by all!Then, on the Saturday it was a train journey for me and my bro, Sandy, to London to meet up with my crazy cousin Rebecca who lives on an old abandoned factory site with around 300 other artists, designers, actors, illustrators and other creative types in Haringey. It's somewhere in London I had never been before but I was pleased and astounded with an entire road ( Green Lanes ) choc full of Turkish deli's, bakeries, shops and restaurants. We ate at a very reasonable place called Devran.
There is a truly authentic menu of Turkish dishes on offer, I can't say it's the best Turkish restaurant I've ever eaten in because it's the first one I've ever eaten in but the food was fantastic. We had a mixed vegetarian Meze to start between us with some of the best pitta bread I've tried, I followed this with a gorgeous slow cooked lamb Kleftico which was also delicious. The total price for 3 of us including a couple of Turkish beers each for Sandy and me and two glasses of wine for Rebecca was £74 which, by London standards is a steal! I would highly recommend, if you are in that part of London, going and giving one of the many restaurants a try, you won't regret it!
On the Sunday it was on the tube for us across London to Notting Hill for Carnival. I hadn't been for about 8 years and Sandy had never been before and I have to say we had a magnificent day of drinking rum cocktails ( one my cousin and me had made up many years before consisting of a young "jelly" coconut, plenty of Cockspurs rum, ginger beer and lime.) filling we belly of good honest Caribbean street food and dancing on street corners to the most intense and earth shaking dub music at "University of Dub". A totally excellent family day out!Sandy and me went to do a little bit of shopping in the deli's and bakeries on Green Lanes on the Bank holiday Monday ( Sandy bought some squid jerky!) then it was the train home to rainy old Cannock.
So, as you can imagine, it took a couple of days to recover from the weekend and I was keen to get something cooked and blogged for you over the weekend just gone. My original idea, with the weather turning from sunny to somewhat cooler, was to do a sticky toffee pudding for you but, after listening to Lily Allen being interviewed on the radio and mentioning a lemon drizzle pollenta cake she likes to bake, I thought I'd give that a try.
First of all, those of you that are not gluten intolerant, I don't want you to be put off trying this recipe just because it contains no flour, like a "normal" lemon drizzle cake. This is not a substitute recipe, it isn't missing anything by using gluten free ingredients and it's not a poor relation to the standard way of cake making. In my opinion it is a cake in it's own right and is just as delicious. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I actually prefer this recipe. It is guaranteed to be moist, has a lovely cakey texture and has, what I like to call, an adult lemony taste to it, by which I mean it is not too sweet or sickly and has a nice sharpness to it.
As I hadn't baked this sort of thing before I had a good look round the Internet and through my library of cook books to come up with the recipe. There was a couple of things on the web that I thought I must give a go to because they sounded like a great idea but I have put my own little twist on it and jiggled around with the quantities until I was happy with the results. I hope you like it too!
Lemon Pollenta Drizzle Cake Recipe: (makes around 12 good slices.)
Equipment:
Springform cake tin approx 9 1/2 inches x 3 inches deep.Kitchen scales.
Large mixing bowl.
Large saucepan.
Stick blender.
Wooden spoon.
Grease proof paper.
Large measuring jug.
Ingredients: For the Cake.
2 lemons.
140g of butter, softened, plus a little extra for buttering the cake tin.
3 medium eggs.
200g of caster sugar.
50g of palm sugar, jaggery goor, gur shakar or muscovado sugar. (any one of these will give an extra malty treacly taste to the finished cake but if you don't have any use an extra 50g of normal caster sugar.)
150g of ground almonds.
200g of coarse cornmeal ( sometimes called pollenta.)
1 teaspoon of baking powder.
Ingredients for the lemon drizzle:
140g caster sugar.Juice of 1 lemon.
Method:
Put two lemons in a large saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil.Drain the water from the lemons, fill the saucepan up again with cold water, bring slowly to a boil, reduce the heat to low and let the lemons simmer gently for about 1 hour, until they are really soft. You may need to top the water up a couple of times.
Once the lemons are ready remove from the saucepan and allow to cool for a few minutes.
You can now turn your oven on to 180 degrees c/ gas mark 4.
Cut the lemons up and remove the seeds, try to be careful not to lose too much of the juice or pulp from the lemons.
If you are using one of the specialist sugars then shave it with a knife, or grate it so you don't get big lumps of sugar in the cake.
Put the pureed lemons into a large mixing bowl and add the caster sugar, the specialist sugar, if using, and the butter.
Beat with a wooden spoon until well mixed.
Add the pollenta, the baking powder and the ground almonds to the bowl and mix until all the ingredients are combined.
Crack one egg into the middle of the cake mix and whisk it with a fork, mix it through the cake mix, then repeat with the second egg, then the third until it is a smooth consistency.
( mixing them in one at a time in this way will prevent the cake mix from splitting, and its easier than trying to do all three eggs at once.)
Butter the cake tin base and sides then line the bottom with greaseproof paper. ( I find it easier to line the base with a sheet of paper, then clamp on the springform side then trim off the excess paper.
Spoon the cake mix into the lined and buttered springform and bake in the oven for 40 to 50 minutes, until a skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean. The top of the cake will be a lovely dark golden colour.
While the cake is still warm, pierce with a skewer all over so that the drizzle penetrates right into it.
To make the drizzle, simply warm up the sugar until it liquefies and add the lemon juice to it. You will get more juice out of the lemon if you microwave it for 30 seconds on high before you cut it.
Pour the drizzle all over the cake for a lovely shiny glaze. Let the drizzle soak into the cake for 15 minutes or so and you're ready to slice and serve!
The finished cake has a really nice tangy mouthwatering lemony taste to it, it's lovely and moist, even before you put the drizzle on it, and the coarse pollenta has a slightly grainy texture which I really like. If you have used one of the specialist sugars then you will also see what I mean about the hint of treacle, it really does add another dimension of flavour to the cake.
Well there you go then blog buddies, This one took a long time to publish as my laptop finally gave up the ghost as I was writing it. Thankfully, I managed to get a replacement this week so I could finish writing it and get it out there to you lovely people.
Things should return back to normal next week, fingers crossed! I am doing the food for a wedding on the Saturday ( 13th September.) but I'm pretty sure I can do my next blog on Sunday and have it ready for you by the middle of next week.
Until next time then,
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