Lemon Polenta Cake Version 2

You may have already tried out Nigella's Lemon Polenta Cake, which I wrote about here. It is a great cake, but I always find that it gets a bit too wet with the syrup. Recently I tried out another polenta cake by Rose Prince as part of the Telegraph's Baking Club recipe here. It was undeniably delicious, I am mad for polenta cakes, I love the gritty texture. With the syrup for Rose Prince's cake I reduced it a lot more than I do with the Nigella one, but also the cake is cooked in a different way so I am trying out whether I can get a more stable cake.

Here goes:

Recipe is much the same as Nigella's, if you want to do the orange version substitute the lemons for oranges and the syrup is a little different too.

200g Butter  Recipes always call for unsalted, I can never be bothered to buy different butter for baking so I don't. 
200g Demerara Sugar
200g Ground Almonds
100g Polenta
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Essence/Extract
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 Lemons zested- keep for juicing.

Syrup:
Lemon Version:
2 Lemons- juiced
125g Icing Sugar

Orange Version:
2 Oranges- juiced
100g Caster sugar

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 2 1/2, 160c

Grease and line a 20cm springform tin

Cream the butter and sugar together, the sugar won't dissolve so it will look gritty.
Add the vanilla in and stir.
Add in the eggs one at a time.
Mix together the polenta, ground almonds, baking powder and zest.
Stir into the butter and sugar.

Pour into the tin and bake for 45-50 mins.

Boil the syrup.
Rose Prince suggests to cool the cake for 10mins outside of the tin before pouring the syrup over, I don't do this as I'm much too impatient. Skewer the top, pour the syrup over and leave to cool.

Here it is.. I would suggest as Rose Prince does to add chopped pistachios over the top,not only pretty but give a lovely textured crunch and flavour with the cake, especially the orange one!

It is delicious with greek yoghurt on the side too.

Scrumptious Scandi Salmon

You will already know how much I love Diana Henry and her beautiful cook books. I know I have been out of the blogging loop for sometime due to having a real life job for once in my life and commuting all the spare hours for cooking seemed to evaporate.

Now that I am sadly jobless once more- the curse of the design industry- I have more time to cook (definitely a bonus).

So what else to do but delve into some new cook books. Diana Henry's A Change of Appetite landed into the kitchen a few weeks ago and now as with all of her books I am trying to find excuses for cooking several dishes everyday! However, I am holding back, there are only two of us and we can only eat so much!

We fancied some fish, and a different flavour, not a curry or cleansing watercress sauce but something more refreshing to our palate. Enter Scandinavia (my choice may have been influenced by the returning series of Wallander on BBC 4) and and the deliciousness that is about to engulf you!

I halved the amount of salmon for this recipe, but kept the rest the same. My notes as usual will be in italics, of course I didn't have all the correct ingredients!

Burgers:
500g Salmon fillet, skinless, boneless.
25g Butter -A knob- I can never be bothered to measure
1/2 Onion very finely chopped- Don't be tempted to put in a chopper- it goes too mushy
2 tbsp Chives- snip finely into the mixture with scissors- quick and easy
2 tbsp Mayonnaise - I used light mayo- I just happen to prefer it, not for any other reason
1 tbsp Crème fraîche - I had some soured cream to use up so I substituted
Salt and Pepper

Sauce:

150g Greek Yoghurt
1 tbsp Mayonnaise
1 tbsp Dill - finely snipped
1/2 Small garlic clove, crushed- As I'm writing this I realise I put the whole clove in 
75g Really good tomatoes

Rye bread
Salad- Leaves or whatever you fancy- we had avocado, tomato and cucumber chopped salad. Instead of leaves and sliced cucumber going on top of the sauce.
Cucumber

Chop the salmon up into very small pieces, they don't have to be perfect squares. 

Melt the butter and fry the onion, only until soft, not coloured.

In a bowl, mix the salmon, chives, mayo, crème fraîche and seasoning, add in the onions. Cover and set in the fridge for 30 mins. Once rested, shape into burgers and place on a nonstick baking sheet that can fit under your grill. Cover, put in the fridge.

To make the sauce, mix the yoghurt, mayo, dill and garlic, put in the fridge. Leave the tomatoes until you are 30mins away from serving, to add into the sauce, deseed and finely chop, stir through.

Preheat the grill to the highest setting- stick your sheet under the grill, not too close and grill until cooked, no need to turn. Diana Henry says to turn the grill down after 2 mins and cook for a further 2, I think I cooked mine for about 6 mins, I just miscalculated time. They didn't seem overcooked- maybe because the sheet was fridge cold.

Toast the rye bread, spread on the sauce place your delicious burger on top and revel in it's deliciousness.

No pictures- I forgot and was too eager to eat!

Also follow Diana Henry on Twitter and here is her Website