Orange Polenta Cake

Spring is in the air, and for me that means citrus cakes! I am super excited about this cake. For my birthday (way back last year), my lovely boyfriend was tasked with going out and getting me many slices of delicious cakes instead of one normal birthday cake. I don’t ask for much..

He got me a delicious and unusual selection, but our favourite was probably the orange and polenta cake. It wasn’t too sweet, but it was moist and a little crumbly and melt in the mouth delicious.

I’ve been on the hunt for polenta since then..

I cracked it the other day – the little Italian deli at the market, of course! They had it, and a ton of other absolutely delicious ingredients of which I picked up one or two.. or five..

This is a pretty simple little cake otherwise. I think I’ll play around with the proportions of polenta to flour to ground almonds, next time I might up the polenta and reduce the flour. I only have quite small and tall cake tins, so I divided the recipe into two. and got two flat but perfectly cooked cakes. Absolutely delicious!

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Oh, hurry up Spring! Yes. technically it's March, but it's still cold.

This is the kind of dinner that is a great big hug on a plate. It’s healthy and wholesome and packed of lovely veggies. And the sauce! Amazing.

I really love finding new delicious things to make in my slow cooker. I made this a little while back. I put it in the slow cooker in the morning before getting into bed post-night shift. When I woke up at 6pm, my dinner was cooked and ready to eat, and that stuff matters when you’re running on 5 hours sleep – I could have cried with happiness!

This ticks all my boxes-  simple, quick (relatively speaking, the work/prep involved to make it only takes minutes), tasty and healthy. A total winner.

Shortbread - My Mum's Recipe

Lent is upon us once again. But, everyone knows that you can break your Lent on a Sunday.

And when you break your Lent, you need to do it in style. Forget a few squares of chocolate, you need something amazing.

Enter shortbread.

Shortbread is amazing. Shortbread also eluded me for many years. My mum makes amazing shortbread, and I basically rooted through her recipes until I found it this Christmas. Sharing is fun.

I think they key is the cornflour, it gives it a beautiful “snap” and makes the biscuit deliciously crumbly and crunchy.  The butter is incredible. It’s all working. AND it got the seal of approval from my little godson on Christmas day (he had one in his mouth and one in each hand and was anxiously checking the box to see how many were left).

Apart from being gorgeous and buttery and delicious AND easy to make, its also a fairly versatile recipe. I’ve made it with just plain sugar topping, with lemon zest in the biscuits, and (a personal favourite) with chocolate chips in the dough!