Fruit and nut polenta cake
Serves: 8-10
Prep time: 25 mins Total time: 
Recipe photograph by Maja Smend
Fruit and nut polenta cake
Recipe by Annie Bell
This bake includes nutritious goodies, such as nuts, raisins and carrot, plus healthier oils rather than butter. The result is a cross between a pudding and a moist cake
Serves: 8-10
Prep time: 25 mins Total time: 
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Nutritional information (per serving)
Calories
363Kcal
Fat
23gr
Saturates
4gr
Carbs
31gr
Sugars
25gr
Fibre
1gr
Protein
7gr
Salt
0.3gr
Annie Bell
Annie started her career as a chef, and is now an award-winning food writer who has written more than a dozen cookbooks. Her recipes are always as beautiful as they are delicious.
Annie Bell
Annie started her career as a chef, and is now an award-winning food writer who has written more than a dozen cookbooks. Her recipes are always as beautiful as they are delicious.
Ingredients
- 100ml groundnut or vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing
- 150g golden caster sugar
- 2 medium eggs, separated
- 2 tbsp whole milk
- 90g peeled carrot, coarsely grated
- 60g walnuts, finely chopped
- 50g raisins
- 60g finely ground polenta or cornmeal (see tip on step 1)
- 60g ground almonds
- ½ rounded tbsp gluten-free baking powder
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon, plus 1 tsp extra for dusting
- 150-200ml full-fat Greek yogurt, to serve
- 2 tsp icing sugar, for dusting
- dried rose petals to serve (optional), finely chopped or crushed
Step by step
Get ahead
The cake will keep for several days in the fridge, loosely covered with clingfilm.
-
Preheat the oven to 190°C, fan 170°C, gas 5. Grease and line a loose-based, or springform, 20cm tin with baking paper. Whisk the oil and caster sugar in a large bowl, then whisk in the egg yolks and milk, and fold in the carrot, walnuts and raisins. Combine the polenta and ground almonds in a medium bowl, then sift in the baking powder and stir in the spices. Stir into the carrot mixture.TipCoarse polenta can be finely ground in an electric coffee grinder to achieve the right consistency.
- Whisk the egg whites in another bowl until they are stiff, and fold them into the cake mixture in two batches. Transfer the mixture to the cake tin and bake for 30-35 minutes until shrinking from the sides and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Run a knife around the top edge of the cake, which will be very delicate, and leave it to cool in the tin.
- Just before serving, spoon the yogurt over the cake. Mix together the icing sugar and extra cinnamon, then dust over the cake, and scatter over a pinch of rose petals, if using.
