BLACKCURRANT POLENTA CAKE

Along with a lot of people I am a huge fan of Dan Leppard and am the proud owner of his book 'Short and Sweet'. His Lemon and Poppyseed Cake is a triumph and should be made by everyone immediately but I am also a huge fan of his Cherry Polenta cake.

I don't make cakes or pudding very often but this Sunday I just felt like baking. As I hadn't actually planned anything I had a rake through the freezer where I found a bag of blackcurrants bought frozen from a Garden Centre on the way back from Bath in May - whenever I see blackcurrants I always snap them up as they rarely make it to grocers or supermarkets, I believe Ribena snaffles most of them up and I do love blackcurrants. We are probably talking about around 500g of blackcurrants. I pondered the idea of making a mousse, or perhaps a blackcurrant crumble but then I remembered the cherry polenta cake and thought - why not?

I halved the amount of mix for this cake as there are only 2 of us on a Sunday - I used a correspondingly smaller tin. The addition of pine nuts, as recommended by Dan, really make the cake - adding that bit of crunch to an otherwise sumptuously moist cake. I haven't given you the recipe - you'll have to go and buy the book!