Olive Oil Polenta Cake Recipe

"The best time to bake is when you have friends coming over," says recipe developer Alexander Roberts. "I love keeping an arsenal of ready-to-go quick bakes in my recipe files for last-minute visits or unexpected company." Roberts' latest recipe for olive oil polenta cakes fits perfectly into that category. "These take no time at all and they're just as cute as they are delicious," says Roberts.

Perhaps best known as the base of a savory porridge, polenta can also be used in cakes and other desserts. When used in baked goods, polenta provides a lightly sweet note of corn. Since it's gluten-free it will produce a more tender cake, allowing you to use less flour. The fruity, bright, and herbaceous flavors of olive oil pair excellently with citrus and polenta, resulting in a cake with subtle sweetness. When possible, it's best to use a higher-quality olive oil, which will always have more flavor.

To make these olive oil cakes, you can mix up a quick batter by hand — no mixer required. This is the perfect time to pull out your miniature Bundt pan if you have one in your kitchen. If you don't, no worries,  you can just use a cupcake pan instead. Once the cakes are baked, let them cool briefly, then dip them in a powdered sugar glaze. Leave them to set for a few minutes and they're ready to be served with tea, coffee, or a thoughtfully-paired cocktail.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. 

Whisk the flour, polenta, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl until combined. Set aside.

Juice and zest the orange into a large bowl.

Add the olive oil, sugar, sour cream, and egg to the orange juice.

Whisk on high speed with a hand mixer for 1 minute, until pale yellow.

Mix in the dry ingredients on low speed.

Portion the batter evenly into the cups of the bundt pan.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into one of the cakes comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes, then remove the cakes from the pan.

Mix the powdered sugar and milk together to form a glaze.

Dip the top of each cake in the glaze and let sit 10 minutes to set. Serve and enjoy!

If you've never used polenta for baking, you might be confused as to which type you should grab at the grocery store. There's coarse, quick-cooking, and even pre-cooked polenta (which we definitely don't want in this cake recipe). If possible, use quick-cooking polenta, which is also sometimes labeled as fine yellow polenta. Coarse polenta will work as well although the cakes might have a slightly grittier texture. 

If you can't find any polenta or you feel like experimenting with different types of flour, you have a few options. The first and probably best option would be fine or medium yellow cornmeal. You might be asking yourself, what is the difference between cornmeal and polenta? At the end of the day, they're both dried corn. Cornmeal is ground finer, to an almost powdery consistency. This makes it perfect when you want to use a larger ratio of cornmeal to flour. Using too much polenta (more than half) can cause a sandy texture since it is ground more coarsely than cornmeal.

You could also swap in semolina flour (3 tablespoons instead of ¼ cup), almond flour (use ¼ cup), or regular all-purpose flour (use ¼ cup) in place of the quarter cup of polenta. If you use semolina flour, the cake will have a tighter crumb, and if you use almond flour, it will be a bit lighter.