Vegan and Gluten Free Blood Orange Polenta Cake
This is a wet cake or as I prefer to call it - a finger licking good cake. I also use flax seeds as they are a great replacement for eggs, so good in my opinion that a non-vegan would be hard pushed to notice the difference.
Let me know how you get on and remember the rule is - there are no rules, so experiment and make to your own tastes.
Method
Get all your ingredients together first and then you are ready to go.
Start your oven - Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4.
In a mug, combine the 1/2 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar and 120ml almond milk.
Put the ground flax seeds in a small bowl, add the three tablespoons of almond milk and mix. Leave them for a while.
Tip: I had to grind the flax seeds, so buy milled flax seeds if you can to make life easier.
Zest two of the oranges into a bowl. Add the flour, polenta, 100g of the caster sugar, the baking powder, bicarb and salt, and whisk.
Add the rapeseed oil and mix again, then add the flax seeds and vinegary milk, and whisk to combine.
Tip: The mix is quite wet so don`t add anything extra. You are on the right track.
Spoon the dough into the cake tin.
Peel the two zested oranges and, with your sharpest knife, cut off 2 to 3 very thin slices. Lay them on top of the cake mix, then bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.
Tip: As you can see from the photo, I forgot to peel the oranges first and they sank into the mix. Laugh.
In the meantime, make the syrup. Juice the remaining orange into a small pan (you should get around 60-80ml), add the remaining 40g caster sugar and bring to a boil.
Lower the heat to a whisper and cook for two minutes, until the mix turns sticky and syrupy, then take off the heat.
Take the cake from the oven, prick the top all over with a skewer, brush or spoon the syrup over and leave to cool before eating.
Enjoy. Deliciously messy to eat and very moreish.
Ingredients
- ½ tsp apple cider vinegar
- 120ml almond milk, plus 3 tbsp extra
- 1 tbsp milled flax seeds
- 3 blood oranges
- 100g gluten free flour
- 100g quick-cook polenta
- 100g caster sugar + 40g for syrup
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 pinch salt
- 50ml rapeseed oil
