I am a total recipe nerd and use Evernote to keep everything organized. I clip in recipes I find on blogs and websites, preserving their source URL, as well as keep long lists of what we’ve eaten at home everyday and ideas of things to try. Perfect for those “what on earth am I going to cook today” moments. The search function is more powerful than it initially appears (it’s documented but not obvious to users) so that through tagging and keywords it’s easy to find, for instance, that pasta dish with courgettes I did last year from Epicurious, a recipe to use up malingering egg whites or a gluten-free cake without flour.
Evernote’s also on the iPad – with the case it’s fantastic for propping up in the kitchen, especially as it wipes clean of floury smears. I’m also in the process of scanning the index pages of all my recipe books as well, so that through the magic of OCR those analogue recipes become digitally accessible in Evernote. (I know. The white coats are coming.)
But sometimes, all this nerdishness comes to a quietly brilliant, and tasty, fruition. I wanted to find a loaf cake to use up the gorgeous oranges we get here, but that would complement with David Lebowitz’s Salted Butter Caramel Ice-cream (highly recommended). After researching my Evernote database [insert your snigger here] I found this, which in its original version has a topping of caramelised oranges. I omitted the topping, halved the recipe and voila!
It contains polenta, which gives it an earthy grounding and a lovely nubbly texture that’s a bit more sturdy than normal cake crumbs. The orange zest gives it a inner glow while the orange blossom water lends depth to the orange flavour. It’s not too sweet either, which meant it made a great dessert with that caramel ice-cream or (my preferred version) a solitary mid-morning treat, with pure greek yoghurt.
Orange and polenta cake
Adapted from Ottolenghi
Makes one small loaf
- 25g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 100g unsalted butter
- 100g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp orange blossom water
- 120g ground almonds
- 60g polenta, the quick-cook type
- Zest of 2 oranges
Preheat the oven to 170˚C. Butter and line a 1lb loaf tin.
Cream the butter with the sugar until pale, then stir in the two eggs, orange zest and orange blossom water, ground almonds and polenta. Finally sift in the flour, baking powder and a fat pinch of salt and fold in with a metal spoon until combined. Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for about 40 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.
Serve with a pregnant cloud of greek yoghurt and eat by a window, alone, with a cup of tea. Bliss.
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