It’s been a rough 48 hours in the Loveaudrey household.

I was startled by an early morning phone call from my Mum yesterday. I got that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach when I saw her number flash up on the caller ID. I just knew something bad had happened.

Sure enough, she told me my Stepdad {or Bonus Dad as I like to call him} had been in an accident on Tuesday afternoon. He’s a keen cyclist and, although the details are a little hazy, it would seem he came off his bike while he was out riding near their home in Dorset.

He was injured quite badly and initially the doctors were very concerned about the knock to his head. Thankfully, a CT scan revealed there was nothing sinister going on, but he had manged to shatter his left arm very, very badly. So far he’s had two lots of surgery to repair the damage. There are a few issues with his heart too, but the doctors are on it.

I tell you, he may be 80 in a few months, but my Bonus Dad is tough as nails {we’ll gloss over the fact he’s stupid enough to cycle without a helmet though!}. I have felt sick with worry ever since my Mum called and I cannot wait to get over to the hospital and see that they’re both OK.

Until then, I’ve decided the best thing to do is distract myself with cake….

Prior to all this unpleasantness, I was having a wonderful week. The weather has been stunning down in Devon, all clear blue skies and blazing sunshine. It’s felt more like May than March. Jesse and I have spent most of our time in the garden and we’ve had daily trips to the park after school.

On Monday I decided we all deserved a proper pudding after our evening meal so I set about making something summery. After browsing my {rather large} collection of recipe books, I settled on this Lemon Polenta Cake. It’s a flourless recipe which I find always makes for a deliciously inviting bake. This cake also benefits from the addition of a fresh, zesty syrup, dribbled all over while it’s still warm.

We ate it with creme fraiche and raspberries and it was d i v i n e. 

You will need:
{for the cake} 
200g unsalted butter, plus some for greasing
200g caster sugar
200g ground almonds
100g fine polenta/cornmeal
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 eggs
zest of 2 lemons {reserve the juice for the syrup}

{for the syrup}
juice of 2 lemons {see above}
125g icing sugar


1 x 23cm springform or other round cake tin


1. Line the base of your tin with baking parchment and lightly grease its sides with butter. Preheat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4.

2. Beat the butter and sugar till pale and whipped.

3. Mix together the almonds, polenta and baking powder, and beat some of this into the butter/sugar mixture, followed by 1 egg, then alternate dry ingredients and eggs, beating all the while.

4. Finally, beat in the lemon zest and transfer to your prepared tin. Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes. It may seem wibbly but, if the cake is cooked, a cake tester should come out cleanish and, most significantly, the edges of the cake will have begun to shrink away from the sides of the tin. Remove from the oven to a wire cooling rack, but leave in its tin.

5. Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon juice and icing sugar in a smallish saucepan. Once the icing sugar has dissolved into the juice, your done. prick the top of the cake all over before pouring the warm syrup over the cake. Leave to cool before taking it out of its tin.

The cake was equally good the following day, shovelled messily into my mouth between sips from a mug of tea. It’s crumbly, but when something tastes as good as this I can cope with the odd bit of fall out.

So, what are your favourite things to bake in the sunshine? Are you partial to a bit of cake for pudding?


Loveaudrey xxx

The original recipe can be found in Kitchen by Nigella Lawson, a recipe book I highly recommend.