Lil Ms Squirrel's Raspberry Margarita Polenta Cake

The theme for tonight's Clandestine Cake Club is "Sporty or Naughty" as a celebration of the forthcoming Olympics.  Having singularly failed to come up with a cake idea that is synonymous with Sport, I settled for Naughty, which basically means anything goes.

Ready for cake club

With time not being on my side, and a need to make something that I've never made before, I decided to go for a polenta cake, to further use some up some of the bag of polenta that's still languishing on my storage shelves.

The lovely Jacqueline from the Cake Boule blog recently wrote about a similar cake that was Mojito-inspired.  I loved this idea, but lacked the 7" cake tin to make it in.  I toyed with the idea of scaling it up to fit my eight inch tin but having read some theory on the Ruth from the Pink Whisk's website, I decided I didn't have the time or patience for that either (and her method required me to have a 7" tin to start with which kind of defeated the objective of the exercise for me).

A quick search turned up a similar recipe in Kitchen by Nigella Lawson.  The recipe is also available online which is really helpful.  And it uses a 9" springform tin which I have so there was no faffy adapting.

I then hit on the idea of using up some of the raspberry glut that my garden seems to be producing on a daily basis.  I know this makes my CCC offerings rather typecast - my last effort was an epic Raspberry and Lime Swiss Meringue Cake - but I figured that it would be a pretty twist to an otherwise flat, yellow cake.  Googling around for another recipe, I found this one from Jane Hornby on BBC Good Food.  I was intrigued by the idea of using frozen raspberries rather than fresh so I popped some in the freezer, mixing three quarters in with the batter and adding the rest ten minutes before the end of baking.  Given the often delicate nature of raspberries, it works really well.

The healthy/sporty factor was further increased by the lack of flour in the cake.  It's made with ground almonds and polenta so with the use of gluten free baking powder, it has some virtues.

My biggest baking problem is always time.  I never seem to have the time to savour the process.  It's something that's always squeezed in during Miss A's nap or before work (so at about 5am) or late at night just before bed time.  This often means I make mistakes or get a little stressed by missing ingredients.  The entire kitchen was turned upside down looking for the baking powder.  It's always to the right of the bunny biscuit jar.  But while I was away at the weekend, the husband took it upon himself to "tidy up".  I couldn't find it for love nor money so ended up making my own courtesy of this fabulous substitutes guide from Joy Of Baking.

Fresh from the oven

Everything was going smoothly.  I was thinking about the look and texture of the batter so I could comment on it for this post.  It had a lovely, sunny tinge yet was quite stiff and heavy.  Obviously from the almonds and polenta.  I popped it into the oven.  Started to tidy.  Found egg number three still sitting uncracked next to the bunny biscuit jar.  That serves me right for trying to bake without my egg-cracking assistant.  She would never have allowed such an oversight.

As for other adaptations, I replaced the one of the lemons with two limes and added 25ml of tequila and a pinch of sea salt to the syrup for the Naughty bit.  Just enough tequila to get a taste without putting you over the drink-drive limit.  Essential when driving back from cake club.  The salt to balance the sweetness of the sugar and give it that authentic margarita twist. It does make quite a lot of syrup, but if you spoon slowly, the cake will drink it in.

If I was serving this for dessert, I'd probably use a side of lightly whipped marscapone, thinned with a little creme fraiche, sweetened with some icing sugar and spiked with lime and a pile of fresh raspberries from my garden.

Will update with the verdict and some pics from cake club in the morning.

Raspberry Margarita Polenta Cake - Adapted from "Kitchen" by Nigella Lawson

for the cake:

• 200g soft unsalted butter, plus some for greasing
• 200g caster sugar
• 200g ground almonds
• 100g fine polenta/cornmeal
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 3 eggs
• zest 1 lemon and 2 limes (save the juice for the syrup, below)
• 200g frozen raspberries

for the syrup:

• juice 1 lemon and 2 limes
• 25 ml tequila
• pinch of Maldon sea salt (other brands are available, but Nigella would approve!)
• 125g icing sugar

• extra icing sugar to dust

• 1 x 23cm (9") springform or other round cake tin

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C (fan)/gas mark 4.
2. Lightly butter the base and sides of the baking tin then base-line with baking parchment.
3. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Mix together the almonds, polenta and baking powder.  Beat a third into the butter mixture followed by one egg.  Repeat until all the dry mixture and eggs are incorporated.
5. Beat in the zest, carefully fold in 3/4 of the raspberries (reserving the rest for decoration) then pour into the baking tin, smooth the top and bake for 30 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven and decorate with the remaining raspberries by gently pushing them into the surface.  Take care not to push too hard!  Return to the oven for another ten minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and check with a cake tester which should come out clean.  The cake should be shrinking away from the sides at this point.  Place the tin on a cooling rack.
8. Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon and lime juice, tequila and salt with the icing sugar.  Once the icing sugar has disolved, carefully prick the sponge all over (in between the raspberries) and carefully spoon the warm syrup over the cake.
9. Leave in the tin to go cold before removing to serve.

If you don't need this to be gluten free, but want it to be nut free instead, you could replace the almonds with 200g of plain flour.

Updated: 2nd September 2012 - I've decided to enter this for the September 2012 Alphabakes competition.  The key ingredient this month should begin with 'P' so polenta cake definitely counts!

Raspberry and Lime Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Today was an ideal opportunity to test scheduled posting in advance of my summer holidays.  When this was published, I was several miles away from my mac at the inaugural Bath Clandestine Cake Club (CCC) meeting.  Stuffing my face with cake.  Excellent!

A vision of pinkness

The subject for the first CCC was 'Your Favourite Fruity Bake'.  Of course, with a blog to write, much as I wanted to make a tried and tested recipe, it made sense to try something new.  So I started with my favourite fruit - raspberries, which I will hopefully have an abundance of in my garden come summer - and it grew from there if you'll pardon the pun.  

I did think about adapting Jules Blueberry and Lime cake which I tried a few weeks ago.  Filled with raspberry curd instead of lime, it might have been just the ticket.  But then I got into researching raspberry curd recipes and happened across this blog post by Laure of The Buttercream and Chantilly Factory and the die was cast.

Just looking at the pictures reminded me of the my very favourite raspberry thing from my childhood - my mother's raspberry fool, with raspberries being her favourite fruit too.  She didn't make it nearly often enough but when she did, it was the best thing ever.  All it is is pureed raspberries mixed with icing sugar and whipped cream and piped into glasses.  If she's being posh, she will pour some raspberry juice into the bottom of the glasses so that when you pipe the fool in, the juice swirls prettily up the side of the glass.

Adding the drizzle

This cake looks just like it's covered in raspberry fool.  Except it's not.  It's covered in Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  Something that has scared the pants off of me when I've researched making it.  Now seemed an apt time to bite the bullet.

So with my own sponge cake forming the base and spiked with lime syrup, I set about learning how to not fear this particular type of buttercream.

It's completely unlike our beloved, tooth-rotting English buttercream.  You whisk egg whites and sugar in a bain marie and then whip them to within an inch of their life in a stand mixer as the cool and gain volume.  Then you drop in little blobs of butter - the little blobs actually amount to 300g in total, so it's by no means healthy.  You panic a bit when it looks like it's all gone wrong and split.  It starts to come together and then you accidentally drop a splash of water in and it suddenly starts to coagulate and you panic.  I think it just so happens that passing my wet hands over the top of the mixing bowl co-incided with it correctly mixing (after ten fraught minutes) and all was well.

Until I decided to refrigerate it.  And then when I left it out to soften, it went all weird.  Cue further panic that it had all gone horribly wrong until some research reveals it needs to be re-whipped for five minutes.  Four minutes and 58 seconds of praying later, it finally started to resemble what it had earlier.

It pipes really well, but quite frankly it is a bugger to spread.  Now I know why the cake on the other blog is totally covered with piping and fruit!  I guess it takes lots of practice and know-how to get it to spread evenly.  But I am happy enough that I managed to make it properly on my first attempt.

That pesky buttercream

And when you've used five egg-yolks for the curd, it's a good way to use up the five left over whites.  All in all, it's not that scary, so long as you've been forewarned about the various stages of it looking like it's all gone horribly wrong!

I will have to update the blog with the pictures from CCC later.

In the meantime, here is the recipe:

For the raspberry and lime curd, click this link

For the meringue buttercream

• 80g raspberry puree 
• 5 large egg whites
• 300g  butter
• 200g sugar

1. Place egg whites and sugar in a heatproof mixing bowl.
2. Set bowl over 1 inch  (2.5 cm) of water in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk gently until the mixture reaches 140°F/60°C (or until sugar has dissolved and mixture is no longer grainy when you rub it between your (clean!) fingers)
3. Remove from the heat and using an electric mixer, whisk on medium speed until the egg whites are cool to touch (they should be cooler than your hand).
4.  Continue beating and gradually add the softened butter in tablespoon-sized pieces. It will first look watery or separated, but after 10-15 minutes, it will come together.
5. Once the desired, pipe-able consistency has been reached, fold in the raspberry puree until well incorporated.
6. The buttercream can be refrigerated for a  week or frozen for a month.  When ready to use, bring it back to room temperature, then whisk for five full minutes until it comes back together (it will look like it's split for the first four minutes and fifty eight seconds!)

For the cake

The finished cake

• 225g unsalted butter
• 225g golden caster
• 225g self-raising flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 4 medium eggs
• Zest of three limes
• 50ml milk
• 1.5tsp vanilla extract

For the syrup

• juice of 3 limes
• 100g granulated sugar

For assembly

• 1 quantity of raspberry curd
• 1 quantity of meringue buttercream
• fresh raspberries

On show at Bath Clandestine Cake Club

1. Grease and line a 20cm round tin and turn oven to 180c/160c fan/Gas 4.  Ensure your oven is configured with a shelf about two-thirds of the way down and another one at the top of the oven. Place a baking tray on top of the upper shelf.  This will help to stop the cake from peaking in the centre.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy then add the rest of the ingredients and mix to a soft consistency.
3. Bake for approximately 1 hour (a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake should come out dry with a few crumbs attached).  It may need slightly longer depending on your oven so if you need to return it to the oven, check every five minutes thereafter.
4. Meanwhile combine the granulated sugar and lemon juice for the glaze.  Heat in a small saucepan until reduced by about a third.
5. When the cake is ready take it from oven and skewer it. Pour over the syrup and allow it to cool in the tin.
6. When the cake is completely cold, place in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up - this gives it a firmer texture for slicing which works really well in warm weather.  Remove from the fridge and slice into three layers.  Spread the bottom layer with curd.  Replace the middle layer and spread this with layer of curd.  
7. Add the top layer and then use a quarter buttercream to ice the top and sides of the cake.  Refrigerate for thirty minutes and then another quarter the buttercream to coat a second time for a smooth finish.  Use the remaining buttercream to pipe decorations on the cake and finish off with whole fresh raspberries

Inside the cake