Orange Polenta Cake

A lovely tasting cake flavoured with orange flower water and topped with caramelized (blood) orange slices.

Like many upside down cakes, this one starts with a basic caramel that’s poured into the cake pan, topped with fruit and then with the batter, which takes just moments to put together after all of the ingredients are weighed. I used a regular cake pan and buttered it well instead of lining it with parchment; the cake released easily hot from the oven.

The cake is moist and dense without the grittiness of a cornmeal cake. And the orange slices…....bittersweet and a little bit "jammy” in texture (so much so, I didn’t add the optional marmalade glaze) and easily the best part of the cake. But, there weren’t enough of them. Baking the recipe in a larger pan and making a thinner cake would give me the fruit:cake ratio I prefer.

Serves 8-10.