VEGAN POLENTA CAKE WITH ROSE AND PISTACHIO

Ready for a spot of summer baking?! Yesterday was so hot, all I could think of was hiding under the apple tree in the shade with a huge glass of iced mint water and devouring a refreshing, zesty something. What came to mind were sunshine flavours of lemon and rose, (which I fell in love with in Morocco) and a dusting of jewel-like pistachios on top.With the doors and windows flung open to create a breeze the oven went on and my first bake in months happened – a vegan polenta cake. In order for full disclosure here I will tell you that this baking took place in my sister’s kitchen as we STILL don’t have one.My jar of edible rosebuds are Tea from Jing Tea and the lovely textured slate plates are actually place mats made in Scotland by Just Slate, these came from Houseology. They also make a beautiful cake stand if you going to be doing some rustic outdoors are entertaining!If you can face jumping in the kitchen, the recipe is below. If not, bookmark it for a rainy Saturday. It’s a real zingy spirit lifter. You can decorate the cake as a whole or like these pictures show, cut out individual mini cakes with a smooth scone cutter (once the cake is cooled). Don’t worry all the edges were eaten within minutes – nothing gets wasted here, you can be damn sure of that.Polenta Cake

180g coconut oil/olive oil
250g caster sugar or coconut sugar
4 tbsp milled chia or flax seeds mixed with 215ml water
270g ground almonds
140g instant polenta
1.5 tsp baking powder
3 lemons – zest and juice

Decoration
Toasted pistachios finely chopped
Roughly torn food grade rose petals
300g Icing sugar
1 Tbsp Lemon juiceTo Make
Preheat the oven to 160 °C and oil a 30cm/12″ cake tin.
Mix together the chia or flax seeds with the water in a small bowl and set aside for a few minutes until they form a gel.
In a large bowl, beat together the oil and sugar for the cake, until smooth. Add the chia/flax seed mix and beat again.
Then fold in the ground almonds, polenta, baking powder, and finally all the zest and the juice of 2 of the lemons. Mix gently until just combined.
Bake on the middle shelf or 40 minutes or until a skewer or knife comes out clean.
Leave to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then carefully turn out onto a plate.

Make the icing to your desired consistency by combining the remaining lemon juice (half a teaspoon at a time) and icing sugar in a bowl, stir until smooth and glossy. Once the cake is cool, top with icing then sprinkle over the rose petals and chopped nuts.I hope you will enjoy this recipe, it’s my first time replacing eggs with chia seeds?! Happy baking :)Collaboration post with Houseology, they sent me the slate mats, I did the rest! x