Orange Polenta Cake – Malai dulce

Last Updated on 10/07/2020

Romanian orange polenta cake or malai dulce soaked with syrup: so soft, so moist, so delicious! Definitely the best sweet polenta cake I have ever had!

Sweet Polenta Cake

This orange polenta cake could be the end of a long quest – the quest after a cake made with cornmeal that I actually like. I’ve made many polenta cakes over the years, searching for the one, the one I would like, the one I imagined so many times when reading some recipes.

And every one of them was so disappointing! Like really really disappointing, so disappointing that they were all either unceremoniously thrown away after trying one slice or were fed to my friend’s chickens.

So I had actually given up already. But then I found this sweet polenta cake recipe scribbled in my recipe notebook, something I wrote down quite a while ago under the name of malai dulce (sweet cornmeal).

It seemed too simple, all the other recipes contained more exciting ingredients like fruits or dried fruits or whatever. This one was very plain in comparison. But then it was easy to make so I thought – one last try!

I feared the grittiness of the cake as I don’t like biting on that half-cooked cornmeal, so I decided to take the recipe one step further and soak it with some leftover orange syrup I still had in the fridge after making my beloved Orange Tiramisu last weekend. And EUREKA!

I had found my sweet polenta cake at last! It was exactly the way it was supposed to be: soft – no trace of grittiness although the cornmeal was not cooked before, incredibly moist due to the syrup, tasting sweet and comforting, and of orange. So good! You really have to try it!

Tips to make sweet polenta cake

Cornmeal and semolina type:

• I used medium cornmeal or polenta with short cooking time, the instructions on the package indicated 10 minutes of cooking time.
• Choosing a cornmeal type that doesn’t need to be cooked for a long time helps against that annoying grittiness you might otherwise experience.
• For the same reason, I chose a fine/ soft semolina kind.
• In Germany, there are two sorts of semolina: the coarse/hard one that I use for making dumplings for the soup and the fine/soft kind used for making semolina porridge or semolina desserts, for instance.

Orange peel:

• The orange peel is optional, only use it if you like it.
• I mention that because many people don’t like it in anything, so you decide.

Syrup:

• You might not need all the syrup to soak the cake, I used about ¾ of it about 75 ml/ 2.5 oz/ 1/3 cup.
• Soak the cake with this amount first and only add more if necessary.
• You might like to add a bit more around the edges, should they be drier than the rest of the polenta dessert.

More Romanian malai (cornmeal) recipes?

How to Cook Basic Polenta or Mamaliga

Roasted Green Onions (Roasted Scallions) – Incredibly flavorsome roasted green onions or roasted scallions on a bed of creamy polenta with cheese and a drizzle of cream on top!

Polenta Chicken – A simple recipe for stewed chicken and polenta with garlic, a delicious polenta dish, full of comfort and flavor.

Romanian Polenta Souffle – Fluffy Romanian souffle served with a delicious garlic yogurt sauce.

Polenta Chips – Crispy, spicy, low-fat, gluten-free, and utterly delicious.

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Orange Polenta Cake – Malai dulce

Yield: 12

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes

Romanian sweet polenta cake or malai dulce soaked with orange syrup: so soft, so moist, so delicious! Definitely the best polenta dessert I have ever had!

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Ingredients

• 150 g/ 5.3 oz/ 1 cup medium cornmeal/polenta (See note 1)
• 50 g/ 1.8 oz/ ¼ cup fine (soft) semolina
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon grated orange peel, optional (See note 2)
• 3 eggs (medium Germany, large US)
• 125 g/ 4.4 oz/ 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 450 g/ 1 lb/ 1 ¾ cup Greek yogurt, divided
• 100 ml/ 3.4 fl.oz/ scant ½ cup vegetable oil
• 50 ml/ 1.7 fl.oz/ scant ¼ cup milk
• icing sugar to dust
• 1 orange to decorate, optional
• For the orange syrup:
• the juice of 2-3 oranges, about 100 ml/ 3.4 fl.oz/ scant ½ cup juice
• 50 g/ 1.7 oz/ ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

Sweet polenta cake:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius/ 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a casserole dish, 28x18 cm/ 11x7 inches.
2. Mix the cornmeal, semolina, baking powder, and grated orange peel in a bowl. Set aside.
3. Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites until stiff and set aside.
4. In a larger bowl beat the egg yolks, sugar, vanilla sugar or vanilla extract, and 50 g/ 1.7 oz/ scant ¼ cup of the yogurt until pale and thick.
5. Add the vegetable oil in a slow stream while beating all the time.
6. Add the rest of the yogurt and beat for about 1 minute.
7. Add the milk and mix shortly.
8. Slowly add the cornmeal – semolina mixture mixing with a regular egg beater/whisk this time.
9. Fold in the egg whites carefully.
10. Pour the mixture into the prepared dish and bake for about 45 minutes or until the cake is golden and a skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Orange syrup:

1. In the meantime make the orange syrup.
2. Juice the oranges until you have about 100 ml/ ½ cup juice. Sieve the juice into a small pot, add the sugar and the lemon juice.
3. When it starts to boil, remove immediately, you should have a rather thin syrup.
4. When the cake is baked, take it out of the oven and prick it all over with a toothpick.
5. Pour about ¾ of the syrup all over the cake and let the cake cool completely in the dish. I only needed about 75 ml/ 2.5 oz/ 1/3 cup to soak the cake. Measure this quantity first, use it and take more only if you find it necessary, you might like to add a bit more around the edges, should they be drier than the rest of the cake.
6. When cool, cut the cake into squares, remove carefully from the baking dish and sprinkle with icing sugar. Decorate with orange wedges if you wish.
   

Notes

1. Look for a sort with a short cooking time – mine needed only 10 minutes.
2. From an organic, unwaxed orange.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 12 Serving Size: 1 square
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 238Total Fat: 10gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 8gCholesterol: 49mgSodium: 120mgCarbohydrates: 32gFiber: 1gSugar: 18gProtein: 7g

Nutrition information isn’t always accurate.