Eggs, flour, butter and sugar are the main ingredients in a basic sponge cake recipe, but they aren’t essential for more dense bakes.
They can be easily substituted for other items to make a cake that’s both dairy and gluten-free, plus much easier to make.
British chef Jamie Oliver has the perfect recipe for just that with his orange and polenta cake.
As shared in his cookbook “Jamie Oliver 5 Ingredients”, the bake combines sweet blood oranges, honey, ground almonds and polenta to make a dense cake.
Not only is it easy to whip up with minimal ingredients, but costs just 92p per serving on average.
Orange and polenta cake recipe
This cake needs a warm oven preheated to 160C/325F/gas 3 for it to cook properly, and a 20cm springform cake tin to mould into a perfectly rounded shape.
Grease the tin with olive oil, then line the base with greaseproof paper and rub the paper with a little oil, too.
Squeeze the juice of three oranges into a jug (roughly 100ml), then transfer into a large non-stick saucepan. Add 100g of honey and simmer until thickened and reduced, then remove from the heat. This is the sweet syrup glaze that will be used later on.
Meanwhile, whisk 200ml of olive oil with the remaining 150g of honey for two minutes using an electric whisk or mixer to combine. Beat in the eggs for a further two minutes, then finely grate in the zest of three oranges.
Stop mixing before folding in the ground almonds, polenta, and the juice of one or two oranges (roughly 50ml), then stir everything through.
Once combined, pour the batter into the prepared tin and bake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until golden and cooked throughout.
Remove from the oven, then leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, loosening with a palette knife before releasing – but be gentle with it.
To serve, quickly peel and slice the remaining oranges then dish them up with the cake, drizzling the sweet syrup over everything before tucking in.
