Lemon polenta cake with lemon verbena syrup

It was a beautiful sunny winters day when we visited Lake George over the June long weekend. It was also my mums birthday.

I made her this cake.

The recipe came from a magazine in the waiting room at the doctors clinic. It sparked my interest so I took a photo with my phone back in March. I found it a couple days before mums birthday while looking through photos and decided it was the perfect time to make it.

The cake travelled well on the dash of the car. While it's supposed to be served with yogurt, on this occasion I threw a can of cream in the esky. The kids were happy, and so was everyone else, the cake went down well after our BBQ lunch.

Lemon polenta cake with lemon verbena syrup

Lemon polenta cake                                                              Lemon verbena syrup

125 gr butter                                                                           100ml lemon juice

2/3 cup caster sugar                                                              ¼ cup caster sugar

2 eggs + 1 egg yolk                                                                 lemon verbena sprig, leaves removed

100mls milk

1 cup SR flour

3 ½ tablespoons fine polenta

Rind of 1 lemon

Pinch salt

1 tablespoon icing sugar to dust + Greek yogurt to serve


Preheat oven to 175C. Grease a 26cm x 22cm tin.


Beat butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after each addition. Add egg yolk and mix until combined.

Stir in milk and flour alternatively, then polenta, lemon rind and salt. Pour into tin and bake for 20-25 minutes.

While cake is baking, place lemon juice, sugar and lemon verbena leaves with ½ cup water in a saucepan. Stir over medium heat to dissolve sugar. Boil for 3-4 minutes to thicken syrup. Strain syrup to remove leaves and keep warm.

Remove cake from oven and using a skewer poke about 20 holes in cake. Pour syrup over cake.


Serve warm or cold, dusted with icing sugar and a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Because it was so delicious, I remade it for a lunch dessert at home with a friend a week later. This time I served it with a dollop of Greek yogurt, and threw a couple rosemary flowers about. Still delicious!

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