Polenta Palaver

Passport & Plate - Chocolate Polenta Cake

Italy | Thursday, March 13, 2014 | 3 photos

Ingredients
16 ounces semisweet chocolate
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter
11 eggs, separated
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons brandy
1/2 cup imported polenta or domestic cornmeal
Confectioners' sugar

 

How to prepare this recipe
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Butter a 9 by 13-inch cake pan and line it with parchment or waxed paper.

In the top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, melt the chocolate and butter together. Stir well and set aside to cool slightly. Meanwhile, in a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or using a hand mixer), whip the egg yolks and 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar until very light yellow and fluffy. In a clean, dry bowl, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and continue whipping just until stiff and glossy, about 30 seconds more. Fold the egg yolks into the hot chocolate mixture until barely blended. Fold in the whites until barely blended. Sprinkle the brandy and polenta evenly over the surface of the batter and fold in. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until the center is firm and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean (a few crumbs are okay), 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Let cool in the pan. Cut into squares, dust with confectioner's sugar, and serve.

 

The story behind this recipe
I will start by saying this is a recipe I got from the internet, foodnetwork.com to be exact. I work in a large office and every year we hold a charity bake sale, and I wanted to wow my colleagues with something unusual, I'd recently watched a nigella bites episode where she made a lemon polenta cake, and it looked delicious, the problem was 2 other girls at work were making lemon drizzle cake, I didn't want to over-lemon the office, so I thought you can never go wrong with chocolate! I searched the internet and judged by the pictures which recipe I felt was right for me. The bake sale was on a Friday so Thursday night I set out to Asda for all my ingredients, now I should tell you as much as I really enjoy making things, but the results aren't always successful and this chocolate polenta cake is my prime not-so-much-of-a-master piece. I overlooked the necessity of grease proof paper, poured way too much brandy of which in the end over powered all the other flavours so much that it was more of a brandy polenta cake....as you can see by the picture this was an utter disaster. Suffice to say I did not win the baking competition.