Recipe: Blood Orange Polenta Cake with Patron Tequila

I almost love any excuse to put booze into a cake, and this recipe came about as a bit of an experiment, but one that went down rather well.

We received blood oranges in our box from the Veg Box People and whilst I was tempted to play with marmalade, I was in reality really craving cake. So I combined a couple of recipe ideas into one. Lily Vanilli‘s Sweet Tooth baking book features a favourite of mine, the Margarita Drizzle Cake. Add to that blood oranges and some polenta lurking in the back of the store cupboard and a nice healthy bottle of Patron Blanco and I put two and two together.

The result is a cake not dissimilar to a Madeira cake in terms of texture, but with a sticky, sweet citrussy top, that just happens to feature a little booziness from the Tequila. In truth it’s not that alcoholic at all, but the Tequila adds just a little smoke to the citrus. Delish.

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Boozy Blood Orange Polenta Cake

Take tequila, blood oranges and cake. Mix together to create something a little bit moreish

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 55 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes

Author Charlie H-S

Ingredients

• 225 g Softened butter
• 150 g Light brown sugar
• 2 tbsp Lemon juice
• 1 tbsp Orange juice
• 2 Medium-sized blood oranges
• 122 g Polenta cornmeal
• 65 g Self raising flour
• 200 g Caster sugar about 1 cup
• 4 Eggs
• 95 g Greek yoghurt
• 70 ml Patron Tequila Blanco

Instructions

1. Pre heat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4.
2. Grease a 20cm round cake tin.
3. Top and tail the oranges, then slice away the skin.
4. Grate the zest from your oranges and reserve.
5. Thinly slice the oranges, and arrange them in the bottom of your cake tin.
6. Make the syrup - put the brown sugar, lemon juice, tequila and liqueur into a small pan.
7. Stir until sugar melts, bubbles and the consistency thickens.
8. Pour into the tin over the oranges.
9. Mix together the reserved orange zest, polenta and flour in a bowl.
10. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and caster sugar.
11. Beat in the eggs, one a time, until combined.
12. Finally mix in the Greek yoghurt.
13. Gently fold the the dry ingredients into the wet, and pour the batter into the tin.
14. Pop into the oven.
15. The cake should take 45 minutes to bake - test by inserting a skewer into the cake - if it is clean when removed, it's done.
16. Let the cake cool for a while in the pan (to allow the syrup to cool).
17. Run a sharp knife around the edge to loosen it, then turn it out, upside down onto a plate.
18. Slice and enjoy!