We are moving home soon… I’m so excited! With that in mind I’ve been trying to use up food we have in the cupboards and I thought I would use some polenta to make little fairy cakes! I haven’t done any baking in a while but I really enjoy it when I have the time. We all deserve the occasional treat too! I got out my baking items and got started on these lemon polenta fairy cakes. The texture of them was divine with the moist lemon and crumbly polenta. You need to try these. I went all out on the lemon too and put it in the glaze AND icing. I hope you enjoy the recipe!
Recipe
Cakes (makes 12 fairy cakes)
85g polenta
85g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
125g golden caster sugar
125g butter
2 eggs
Zest from lemon
60ml lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla essence
Glaze
50ml lemon juice
50g golden caster sugar
Lemon Butter Icing
100g butter
200g icing sugar
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla essence
sprinkles
Method
Cakes
- Preheat the oven to 1800C and line a muffin tray with 12 fairy cake cases.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
- Mix in the eggs one at a time so that the mixture does not curdle. Also add the vanilla essence. Then fold in the remaining dry ingredients (flour, polenta and baking powder).
- Finally add the lemon zest and juice to the cake mix. Transfer the mix to the cake cases.
- Bake the fairy cakes for about 15-20 minutes or until they are springy to touch and golden brown. You can insert a cocktail stick to check. When the stick comes out clean, you know the cakes are cooked.
- Leave the cakes to cool on a wired rack.
Glaze
- Make the glaze by heating the sugar and juice in a pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for about 5 mins. Poke the cakes with a cocktail stick. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cakes. Leave this to set for an hour and then spread over the vanilla frosting.
Lemon Icing
- To make the icing, use an electric whisk to beat the butter until light and fluffy. Then stir in the icing sugar slowly to form a paste. I find this prevents the icing “smoke” and is far less messy!
- Whisk the mix until creamy and combined. Next add in the vanilla and lemon juice and beat the icing until a desired consistency.
Decoration
- Spread the icing neatly with a baby palette knife (or normal cutlery knife) over the fairy cakes.
- Scatter over some sprinkles.
