so what I’m gonna do now is a beautiful
orange and polenta cake okay it’s a
really lovely recipe it works every
single time just because it’s a wood
oven doesn’t mean you can’t do desserts
now historically they would have had
little tins like this with little lids
and they would have sunk it in ash and
then put the lid on top and put the ash
on top and you’d have been able to slow
cook all sorts of lovely desserts okay
so what I want to do now is a beautiful
orange and polenta cake you can do
desserts really successfully in the wood
oven at the end of the day I tend to do
them when the oven temperatures gone
down and it hits around 190 170 degrees
I still use these traditional little
thermometers here just to sort of see
what the temperature is so I’m kind of
confident that I’m not gonna burn it or
undercook it so I’ve got that in there
is a hundred and eighty at the moment so
this lovely recipes dead simple one pack
of softened butter goes in just Nick a
little bit of that butter and put it on
the wrapper that you got it in and just
smear that around a little 8-inch port
mold with a removable bottom you could
use a cheesecake mold if you want to but
this is about four inches five inches
deep by 8 inches 250 grams of butter
goes in there 250 grams of nice
unrefined sugar you could use caster if
you wanted to also I’m just gonna sort
of stab that up first and give it a mix
I just sort of squash the sugar in and
then I can sort of start to beat it as
soon as you start to beat it like that
then what I want to do is add the next
ingredients I’ve got 125 grams of
polenta comes in packets like that you
can get it everywhere these days
in all the supermarkets so 125 grams of
that three large free-range eggs go in
that’s gonna make it rise a little bit
but then to make it properly rise I’m
gonna use a heaped teaspoon of baking
powder that goes in a little pinch of
salt just to season the flour and I’m
going to use 50 grams of flour and then
to flavor it lightly I’m gonna use the
zest of one orange there we go and then
just slowly mix that up until you get a
nice sort of thick batter
it’s basically once you’ve dumped it all
in it’s dead simple great to get the
kids doing it well if you want to do it
lemon flavour instead of orange you
absolutely can or you could do lemon and
orange and lime so once you’ve mixed all
that up 200 grams of ground almonds and
you have forgotten something that goes
in great for flavor and we’re really
using the ground almonds instead of the
flour we just put a little bit in there
we go okay so now you’ve mixed all that
him if you want to you can spice it
cinnamon cloves if you want to put a
little vanilla fruit if you want to if
I’m going to go straight in here into
that mold
and the nice thing is you know when
using wood oven you know you kind of
generally what I tend to do is fast
cooking things roast cooking fish meat
bread stuff like that first in the day
and as the ovens cooling down that’s a
perfect time for doing slow cooking or
desserts so just using that little
thermometer just to sort of reassure me
that it’s a hundred and eighty degrees
that’s perfect so once that’s in all you
got to do is pop that sort of around the
center of the oven close the door if
you’ve got little valves like this just
having sort of half open that should
maintain it sort of a hundred and eighty
degrees status for around about 25
minutes but go into all about half an
hour in you can shift the little tin
around so it’s got even heat and also
just check the temp if it’s gone down to
160 you can just get a little bit of
kindling and just throw it up a few
little extra bits of kindling I’ll just
take the heat slowly up and keep it
around if it’s around about 170 to 185
that’s the sweet spot that’s a really
really good thing
so that cooks now for around about 55
minutes to about an hour and 10 minutes
depending on your oven temperature and
when that’s cooked I’ll show you exactly
how you can tell if it’s cooked on up
okay so the orange and polenta cakes had
an hour now let’s have a little check
beautiful you can see it’s got nice and
golden on top there I’m just gonna get
my cloth here hold one side and then
push up if that’s why we want the
retractable bottom nearly okay angle off
my arm beautiful now let me show you how
you can check if it’s cooked or not
really really simple get yourself a
little knife or a cocktail stick just
going one of the little cracks and just
slip it in right to the mop right to the
bottom hold it for three sir
and take it out if it comes out clean
which that is it’s cooked if it’s a bit
sticky and you need to put it back in
the oven and carry on cooking it but
that’s good I mean the nice thing if I
can just show you let me just take this
off here straight onto a cooling rack
the nice thing about this is when you
cook in wood ovens you know you do get
like this side a slightly darker than
that side sometimes it just catches a
little bit on the bottom ultimately you
don’t want it to be like cremated you
know but the beautiful thing about wood
oven pastries baking cakes is you get
this kind of personality and and it is
not perfect all the way around like in a
perfect normal oven the other thing is
like if you ever do like creme caramels
or creme brulee sorry and lemon tarts
when you put sugar on the top you fire
that bad boy up so it’s really hot and
it just caramelizes the whole top so
quickly you wouldn’t believe so you know
the wood oven and pastries and cakes
absolutely phenomenal and all I’m gonna
do to this now is put it off onto a
little cake stand so what made you is
like a little syrup I’ve got the juice
of one orange about the same amount of
water and about a hundred grams of sugar
and I’ve just made like a nice little
syrup if you want to make it a little
bit more acidic you can put a little
lemon juice in there as well I’m just
gonna bring that syrup but I’ve simmered
that for about five minutes what I like
to do is just like prick this all over
like that and just pour this in and it
will just sink through and that will
give you the most beautiful orange
flavor just drizzling all the way
through it
just get yourself a fork and just prick
it around and it will make little holes
and then literally the syrup will just
go down those holes and when you cut
through it you’ll just have a little fun
Avenue beautiful syrup there all that
lovely orange flavor but that let that
cool down now for an hour so of that
nice little wedge of some creme fraiche
or vanilla ice cream some raspberries or
strawberries and that will be absolutely
beautiful
orange and polenta cake okay it’s a
really lovely recipe it works every
single time just because it’s a wood
oven doesn’t mean you can’t do desserts
now historically they would have had
little tins like this with little lids
and they would have sunk it in ash and
then put the lid on top and put the ash
on top and you’d have been able to slow
cook all sorts of lovely desserts okay
so what I want to do now is a beautiful
orange and polenta cake you can do
desserts really successfully in the wood
oven at the end of the day I tend to do
them when the oven temperatures gone
down and it hits around 190 170 degrees
I still use these traditional little
thermometers here just to sort of see
what the temperature is so I’m kind of
confident that I’m not gonna burn it or
undercook it so I’ve got that in there
is a hundred and eighty at the moment so
this lovely recipes dead simple one pack
of softened butter goes in just Nick a
little bit of that butter and put it on
the wrapper that you got it in and just
smear that around a little 8-inch port
mold with a removable bottom you could
use a cheesecake mold if you want to but
this is about four inches five inches
deep by 8 inches 250 grams of butter
goes in there 250 grams of nice
unrefined sugar you could use caster if
you wanted to also I’m just gonna sort
of stab that up first and give it a mix
I just sort of squash the sugar in and
then I can sort of start to beat it as
soon as you start to beat it like that
then what I want to do is add the next
ingredients I’ve got 125 grams of
polenta comes in packets like that you
can get it everywhere these days
in all the supermarkets so 125 grams of
that three large free-range eggs go in
that’s gonna make it rise a little bit
but then to make it properly rise I’m
gonna use a heaped teaspoon of baking
powder that goes in a little pinch of
salt just to season the flour and I’m
going to use 50 grams of flour and then
to flavor it lightly I’m gonna use the
zest of one orange there we go and then
just slowly mix that up until you get a
nice sort of thick batter
it’s basically once you’ve dumped it all
in it’s dead simple great to get the
kids doing it well if you want to do it
lemon flavour instead of orange you
absolutely can or you could do lemon and
orange and lime so once you’ve mixed all
that up 200 grams of ground almonds and
you have forgotten something that goes
in great for flavor and we’re really
using the ground almonds instead of the
flour we just put a little bit in there
we go okay so now you’ve mixed all that
him if you want to you can spice it
cinnamon cloves if you want to put a
little vanilla fruit if you want to if
I’m going to go straight in here into
that mold
and the nice thing is you know when
using wood oven you know you kind of
generally what I tend to do is fast
cooking things roast cooking fish meat
bread stuff like that first in the day
and as the ovens cooling down that’s a
perfect time for doing slow cooking or
desserts so just using that little
thermometer just to sort of reassure me
that it’s a hundred and eighty degrees
that’s perfect so once that’s in all you
got to do is pop that sort of around the
center of the oven close the door if
you’ve got little valves like this just
having sort of half open that should
maintain it sort of a hundred and eighty
degrees status for around about 25
minutes but go into all about half an
hour in you can shift the little tin
around so it’s got even heat and also
just check the temp if it’s gone down to
160 you can just get a little bit of
kindling and just throw it up a few
little extra bits of kindling I’ll just
take the heat slowly up and keep it
around if it’s around about 170 to 185
that’s the sweet spot that’s a really
really good thing
so that cooks now for around about 55
minutes to about an hour and 10 minutes
depending on your oven temperature and
when that’s cooked I’ll show you exactly
how you can tell if it’s cooked on up
okay so the orange and polenta cakes had
an hour now let’s have a little check
beautiful you can see it’s got nice and
golden on top there I’m just gonna get
my cloth here hold one side and then
push up if that’s why we want the
retractable bottom nearly okay angle off
my arm beautiful now let me show you how
you can check if it’s cooked or not
really really simple get yourself a
little knife or a cocktail stick just
going one of the little cracks and just
slip it in right to the mop right to the
bottom hold it for three sir
and take it out if it comes out clean
which that is it’s cooked if it’s a bit
sticky and you need to put it back in
the oven and carry on cooking it but
that’s good I mean the nice thing if I
can just show you let me just take this
off here straight onto a cooling rack
the nice thing about this is when you
cook in wood ovens you know you do get
like this side a slightly darker than
that side sometimes it just catches a
little bit on the bottom ultimately you
don’t want it to be like cremated you
know but the beautiful thing about wood
oven pastries baking cakes is you get
this kind of personality and and it is
not perfect all the way around like in a
perfect normal oven the other thing is
like if you ever do like creme caramels
or creme brulee sorry and lemon tarts
when you put sugar on the top you fire
that bad boy up so it’s really hot and
it just caramelizes the whole top so
quickly you wouldn’t believe so you know
the wood oven and pastries and cakes
absolutely phenomenal and all I’m gonna
do to this now is put it off onto a
little cake stand so what made you is
like a little syrup I’ve got the juice
of one orange about the same amount of
water and about a hundred grams of sugar
and I’ve just made like a nice little
syrup if you want to make it a little
bit more acidic you can put a little
lemon juice in there as well I’m just
gonna bring that syrup but I’ve simmered
that for about five minutes what I like
to do is just like prick this all over
like that and just pour this in and it
will just sink through and that will
give you the most beautiful orange
flavor just drizzling all the way
through it
just get yourself a fork and just prick
it around and it will make little holes
and then literally the syrup will just
go down those holes and when you cut
through it you’ll just have a little fun
Avenue beautiful syrup there all that
lovely orange flavor but that let that
cool down now for an hour so of that
nice little wedge of some creme fraiche
or vanilla ice cream some raspberries or
strawberries and that will be absolutely
beautiful
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