Finally got the time to sit down to write the recipe for my orange and polenta cake! Few weekends ago, we had our first guests over our new house for a meet up lunch in our garden, and I decided to make a fruity cake to finish off the meal with a nice cuppa tea ☕

There are few recipes out there for an orange and polenta cake which, when I could eat almond would be one of my favorite cake ever but I had to stop when my new nut allergy developed in my late 20s…😔

Fortunately, with a bit of research and experimenting in the kitchen, I managed to get to a pretty good point for a lovely moist and citrussy cake, close to the original result by swapping out the ground almond by ground sunflower seeds🌻!

This cake recipe has also the added benefit to be gluten free and it also happened to be IBS friendly!😁 It uses the whole orange (minus the peeps) so nothing is wasted! No butter is used in this cake either so it is kind of healthier in comparison to other cakes 😏…

Anyway, let me tell you how it’s made:

My whole orange and polenta cake (IBS friendly, Nut free)🍊🚫🌰

Servings: 12

Time required: 1h

Equipment required: blender (I used a Ninja smoothie blender)

Ingredients

• 2 oranges (Seville variety if you find some)
• 6 large eggs
• 125g of caster sugar
• 125ml of maple syrup
• 100g of fine polenta
• 150g of sunflower seeds
• 2 tsp of baking powder (GF if you need to)

Toppings suggestion:

• 250g of lactose free cream cheese (or plant based whipping cream)
• 1tbsp of icing sugar plus extra for dusting
• Raspberries and blueberries or other fruits you fancy

Instructions

1. In the blender, ground the sunflower seeds with short pulses until you get a flour consistency (don’t worry if you still have few not ground pieces)
2. Sieve the flour into a mixing bowl and pulse again the bigger bits left at the bottom of the sieve then add it to the bowl alongside the caster sugar, baking powder
3. Mix everything then set aside
4. Cut the oranges into quarters and remove the peeps (leave everything else!)
5. Boil them for 20 minutes then blend the whole quarters in a blender (you might need to do it in batches if you have a small blender)
6. Add the orange puree and the maple syrup into the dry ingredients and combine everything with a spoon
7. Add the eggs one by one and stir in between each addition
8. Pour the mixture into a lined and oiled 20 cm cake tin with a loose bottom
9. Bake at 170°C on conventional oven or 160°C fan assisted oven for 50 minutes
10. Once cooked, transfer it out into a drying rack to cool completely
11. Beat the cream cheese with some icing sugar to taste then spread it evenly with a palette knife on the cake
12. Top with berries and a dusting of icing sugar

I have done a blend of sugar and maple syrup in order to cut down on the white sugar but if you want to go full on with the traditional sugar then go for it! I will experiment again this recipe without any sugar next time, will give you an update when I do!

Bon appetit!😁