Glazed Pecans

Pecans are such a nice addition to breads, salads, etc. I buy them at the supermarket glazed. I decided to make my own glazed pecans the other day and I added them to my salad. I just love the sweet, savoury and sharp combination in a salad. This was quite easy to make as well. I only had 1/2 a cup of pecans so my measurements are for that amount of pecans. You can double it up and garnish what ever you like or munch on it by itself. Perfect as a gift as well : )

Ingredients

1/2 cup pecans
1/2 tablespoon butter
1/2 tablespoon dark brown sugar (you can use golden brown sugar)
1/2 tablespoon maple syrup

Method

Preheat oven to 350F. Combine butter, brown sugar, maple syrup in a small saucepan over low heat. Once butter and sugar's melted add the pecans. Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until pecans are coated. Remove from heat and line baking tray with parchment paper. Transfer pecans to baking tray and cook in the oven for 7 minutes. Let stand to cool for 25 minutes. Can be stored in a tight container up to 2 weeks. When giving as a gift write the use by date. : ) Enjoy!

Lemon Polenta/Cornmeal Cake Random Recipe Challenge #21

For this months Random Recipe Challenge over at Dom's Belleau Kitchen it's store cupboard finds. We're to use or find something in our cupboard/pantry that's been neglected that should've been used or cooked ages ago. What a fun and wonderful challenge this is. What I found lurking in the back of my pantry was a package of cornmeal that I purchased a year ago because I wanted to make my first cornbread for Thanksgiving. That didn't happen I went with a store bought bread rolls instead. So the cornmeal's been sitting there for a year now and fortunately it hasn't expired.

I flipped through my cookbooks and found a nice recipe from Nigella, a Lemon Polenta Cake. You can substitute the polenta with cornmeal which is what I did, Yay!

I had a bit of trouble turning it onto the plate it broke a little....

This cake's so delicious you can have it anytime of day. We were going to have it after dinner for dessert and that didn't happen. We ate it first then dinner, lol. We drizzled lemon syrup over it which made it softer, sticky and tangy-much more lemony. The syrup was another recipe that went along with the cake.

Ingredients

For the cake

1 3/4 sticks (14 tablespoons) soft unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
1 cup superfine sugar
2 cups almond meal/flour
3/4 cup fine polenta/cornmeal
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 eggs
zest 2 lemons (save the juice for the syrup)

For the syrup

juice 2 lemons
heaping 1 cup confectioner's sugar

1 x 9-inch springform pan

Method

Line the base of your cake tin with baking parchment and grease its sides lightly with butter. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Beat the butter and sugar till pale and whipped, either by hand in a bowl with a wooden spoon, or using a freestanding mixer. My son and I used the wooden spoon method.

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.

Beat in the lemon zest and pour, spoon or scrape the mixture into your prepared tin and 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.

Make the syrup by boiling together the lemon juice and icing sugar in a small saucepan. Once the icing sugar’s dissolved into the juice, you’re done. Prick the top of the cake all over with a cake tester (a skewer would be too destructive), pour the warm syrup over the cake, and leave to cool before taking it out of its tin.

October Final Round Up