I have many many cookbooks but only occasionally dig them out. And when I do, I wonder why it took me so long. The Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan was one of the first cookbooks I owned. It was published in 1992 and has no photos, but is one of my go-to books for savoury dishes. There is only a small section on sweets and desserts.

As I was leafing through it yesterday morning, the polenta shortcake caught my eye, as its uses mainly pantry ingredients and is essentially a mix and bake cake. It is a dense, moist and rustic looking cake, with dried figs, sultanas, pine nuts and fennel seeds. Mark and I have eaten half of it since yesterday and may even finish to off today. I have made a few changes to Marcella’s recipe, and I imagine you also could use different nuts and dried fruit in it. If you do make it, please let me know what you think, here or on Instagram.

Polenta shortcake

140g yellow polenta (not the instant variety)
1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
110g sugar
50g pine nuts
50g sultanas (soaked in grappa if you like, drained)
115g dried figs
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
1 tsp pure vanilla essence
30g butter
1 egg
120g plain flour

Preheat oven to 200C. Grease and line the base and sides of a 22cm cake tin (mine is spring-formed).

Place the sugar, pine nuts, chopped figs, sultanas and fennel seeds in a large bowl and stir briefly to combine. Place the egg and vanilla in a separate small bowl and whisk briefly to combine.

Bring 500ml of salted water to the boil. Pour in the polenta slowly, whisking the whole time. Keep whisking, add the oil and then replace the whisk for a wooden spoon. Cook for a few minutes until it thickens. Remove from the heat and scrape into the bowl with the dried fruit and stir through. Add the butter and stir until it has melted and combined, then add the egg and vanilla mixture and stir that in. Lastly add the flour and mix well so that the cake mix is homogenous. Scrape into the prepared cake tin and smooth the top as well as you can with the back of a spoon.

Bake for 45-50 minutes until golden on top. Remove from the cake tin and set on a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

Lasts 3-4 days in a lidded container placed in a cool spot.