Ingredients
Cake:
- 200 g unsalted butter, (at room temperature), plus extra for greasing
- 100 g demerara sugar
- 100 g caster sugar
- 3 large free-range eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 200 g ground almonds
- 100 g coarse polenta
- 2 large blood oranges, zested (use the juice for the syrup)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 tsp of coarse sea salt
- 100g of flaked almonds, toasted
Syrup:
- 6 cardamom pods
- The juice of 4 oranges / 300ml of orange juice
- 100g of caster sugar
- 3 large sprigs of rosemary
Method
- Preheat the oven to 160°C/320°F/gas 2½. Grease a 20cm non-stick tin with a good amount of butter, line the bottom with greaseproof paper (Lakeland do these great ones that just slot in).
- Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until well mixed. Then beat in the eggs, one and a time.
- Combine the rest of the ingredients, apart from the flaked almonds, in another bowl then add it to the butter/ sugar mix.
- Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 40-45 minutes, or until is golden-brown and a skewer comes out clean.
- Remove the tin from the oven, pierce the top of the cake with a thin skewer in several places and leave to cool for 20 minutes, then turn out the cake.
- Whilst it cools, make your syrup. Crus the cardamom pods and put all the ingredients in a non-stick pan over a medium-low heat.
- To make the syrup, crush the cardamom pods, then put all of the ingredients in a saucepan (leave the rosemary sprigs whole). Simmer for about10 minutes, until the mixture has slightly. Set aside to cool until it is lukewarm- not completely cold.
- Remove the cardamom pods and brush syrup over the cake. Here I decorate it with the crystallised rosemary and flaked almonds, it looks good with some orange segments on the top too.
- Serve it cold/ warm with a drizzle of double cream and raspberries- YUM!
