Cranberries and Apples Polenta Cake

It’s being ages since I baked anything…everything just went down hill since we came up with this brilliant idea to all of a sudden start a diet. Boy…. diets and food blogging don’t go hand in hand at all, as a matter of fact it became rather impossible. Maybe it’s me…. But I can’t take sugar, flour, butter, and still produce something great or blog brag worthy. So my poor dessert site was completely abandoned. I lost some pounds, which is good but how boring was that? Pretty, pretty, pretty boring… So here I am with something to make life sweeter. Because we don’t want the rest of the year to be bitter don’t we? This cake got the yummy award from my hubby (a well renowned sugar addict). Next time I think I’ll use a finer corn meal though. The coarse flour made the cake a bit heavy. The apples, I just put them raw and it was a great surprise because they were still a bit crunchy. Enjoy. If you are feeling a bit chilly check this out.

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Apple and Cranberry Polenta Cake

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2-cup cornmeal/polenta
(not coarse)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 tbsp olive oil
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4-cup sugar
(plus 1 tablespoon for the cranberries)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-cup milk (low fat is ok)
• 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
• 4 little lady apples cut in chunk pieces
• 1 tsp of cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350F. In a saucepan add the cranberries and 1 tablespoon of sugar and cook for 2 to 3 minutes to caramelize the cranberries turn the stove off and add the apple chunks.  Mix it to combine, let it cool down.  Lightly grease a 9-inch round spring form pan. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. Stir in flour mixture, mixing just until no streaks of flour remain visible in the batter. Stir in the cranberries and apples mix. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread into an even lay with a spatula. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the top of the cake springs back when lightly pressed. Cool cake for at least an hour before removing from pan and serving.

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