300g butter softened
300g sugar
300g ground almonds
4 eggs
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
zezt of two oranges
juice of 1 orange
150g stewed rhubarb
150g polenta fine
1 tsp baking powder

Grease a largish tin - say 22cm diameter, and pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

In a bowl cream the butter and sugar together with an electric whisk until pale and creamy. Beat in the eggs.

Carefully mix in the polenta and almonds and then add the orange zest and juice, the vanilla and the rhubarb.

Pour into the prepared tin and bake for approx 40 mins or until the cake is golden and a skewer comes out clean if inserted into the middle of the cake.

Allow to cool and remove from the cake tin.

Decorate with sugar and flaked almonds.

You could also make a delicious rhubarb syrup to drizzle on top of the cake for an even more pronounced rhubarb flavour.

This is a lovely  moist cake that can easily stand alone without any icing.

Makes 1 x 20cm tray
225g plain flour
165g butter
80g pecan - chopped
1tsp baking powder
175g demerara sugar
80g maple syrup
2 eggs beaten
170g white chocolate roughly chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees celcius and grease and line a baking tray.

Melt the butter in a pan, you will start to see white solids at the bottom of the pan, one they turn golden, remove from the pan, this will give a nice nutty flavour. Set aside in a bowl. Then toast the pecans until they are giving of a nice nutty smell too.

Whisk in the sugar and maple syrup to the butter and then followed by the eggs. Carefully fold in the flour and baking powder to this mixture. Finally gently mix in the pecans and the white chocolate. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 20-25 mins until it is set on top. You really do not want to overdue the blondies as you want that dense fudgy consistency, so don't worry if it feels a bit squidgy still. Put in the fridge to cool down quickly or even better prepare an ice bath and dunk the tin into the ice  bath to cool the blondies very quickly, making sure not to drown them!!

Once cool, cut and serve - yum!