Lemon Polenta Cake with Lemon Ice Cream

Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin. It's Thanksgiving weekend and pumpkin is EVERYWHERE. 

Well, I'm bucking the trend.

This weekend it's going to be lemon all the way at our house.

You see, when Sean takes a bite of something, looks me square in the eye and says, 'This is my favourite thing yet - EVER', I know it's a keeper (mostly because he's never said that to me, not once in five years, until today).

I used Nigella Lawson's recipe for Lemon Polenta Cake and followed it exactly. I used the recipe for Lemon Ice Cream from Epicurious and also followed it exactly. I don't know what's gotten into me - following recipes without making modifications really isn't my style.

If you love lemon as much as I do, just try even ONE of the recipes - your lemon lust will be sated I promise. Nigella refers to her recipe as 'what lemon curd would taste like in cake form'. Personally, I'm partial to the ice cream but Sean loved both.

I find recipes in magazines, books and online use too many filler words - why can't they just get to the point? It's amazing how, when you remove all of the useless lingo, a recipe can be whittled down into the most simple sounding instructions. Below, I've done just that to make your life easier.

Lemon Ice Cream

Zest of half a lemon

1/2 C lemon juice (about 1.5 lemons)

1 C sugar

3 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 C 35% heavy cream

1 C milk

• In a pot, over medium heat, whisk lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, vanilla and heavy cream.
• When it starts to simmer, strain twice into a bowl, cover and chill (I always strain twice to catch all the little bits of cooked egg).
• Whisk in milk then process in your ice cream maker.

Lemon Polenta Cake

200g butter, soft

200g sugar

200g ground almonds

100g polenta

1.5 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

2 medium lemons, zested (for cake) and juiced (for syrup)

125g icing sugar (for syrup - also called confectioner's sugar or powdered sugar)

• Preheat 350 - butter an 8-inch cake tin and line with parchment
• Beat butter and sugar until whipped and fluffy
• In a separate bowl, mix ground almonds, polenta and baking powder
• Add 1/3 of polenta mix to butter - mix thoroughly - add an egg - mix thoroughly - do this two more times - add zest
• bake 35-40 min - leave in pan on rack to cool

Lemon Syrup for Cake

• Boil juice from your two lemons with icing sugar until suagr dissolves
• Poke holes over top of cake (I used a long needle because cake is quite moist and delicate), pour syrup over cake, cool in pan then turn out onto plate

Happy Thanksgiving!!