Orange Polenta Cookies

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Multicultural Inspiration from... Italy

I love polenta. Being from a strong Italian background, I ate a lot of it growing up. Since moving out of home a few years ago and living with a very Australian Sous-Jeff, I'd all but forgotten about it. But a few weeks ago, I found a recipe for a polenta pizza that looked just irresistible, and decided to whip some up, like old times. Since then, I'm hooked again, and now, so is Sous-Jeff! So, while flicking through a recipe book this evening looking for a strawberry cupcake recipe (to come later in the week...), a recipe for orange polenta cookies caught my eye. I've seen various recipes for polenta cookies sooo many times, and have just never gotten around to cooking them. But tonight I'm feeling inspired. I have all the ingredients already (except an egg, which Sous-Jeff kindly picks up from his parents' house on his way home from footy training), so I figure why not?!

Eat Me! cook book provides the recipe, as follows...

• 85g butter, softened
• 140g granulated sugar
• grated zest of 1 orange
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 140g plain flour
• 55g polenta

How it's made...


Preheat oven to 170°C and line a baking tray with baking paper.


Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.


Add in the orange zest, vanilla and egg, and beat together until it resembles this:

Add the flour and polenta...

...and stir to combine, until it looks like this...

Roll up walnut-sized balls and place them on a baking tray

Flatten them slightly and sprinkle the cookies with granulated sugar.

Pop the cookies into the oven, wait 12 minutes...

...take them out of the oven, let them rest on a wire rack for 5 minutes, and enjoy!

 They're a little crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, with crunchy little bits of polenta that get stuck in your teeth, and a sweet but citrus-y punch of orange. And awfully moorish. In fact, we've already devoured half the batch. i'm going to pack the rest up to take to work tomorrow to share the cookie love!

My only regret is that I didn't make them sooner... How about you guys? What are your long time "I-must-get-around-to-making-these" recipes, and how'd they go?!