Can I Use Cornmeal Instead Of Polenta For The Apricot Almond Cake?

Our answer

Nigella's Apricot Almond Cake With Rosewater And Cardamom (from SIMPLY NIGELLA) is a gluten-free cake made with polenta and ground almonds (almond meal or almond flour). The polenta used is the fine (but not "instant") type and this is often easier to find in the UK than cornmeal, though we appreciate that this situation may be different in other countries.

Polenta and cornmeal are made from different types of corn and are ground slightly differently, but they can be used interchangeably for some dishes. For this particular cake you could use cornmeal but you need to find a fine-ground cornmeal if at all possible as this will give the cake a softer texture, but if this is difficult then a medium-ground cornmeal would probably work as well. However, we would avoid using corn flour (this is US corn flour and not the white cornstarch that is called cornflour in the UK) as this is extremely fine and could give a slightly stodgy texture.