Orange Flavored Olive Oil Cake

Spring is making a shy appearance here in Maine. After perhaps the best April Fool's joke ever with a Nor'easter that dropped about 6 inches of snow in my yard, our temps have been climbing slowly.

We took advantage of the low 50's temps this weekend to have some much needed outdoor time. Tom took me on my first motorcycle ride of the spring on Saturday. I was safe and spiffy in my new helmet, gloves and jacket. Today was people-powered cycling, getting our road bikes out for a spin. Our shakedown ride to get the winter out of our legs ended up being a 23 miler. It was great to be out, the roads were in decent shape and other than very cold toes, I felt great at the end of the ride.

Ok, back to baking. We were having some friends for dinner Saturday night, and I had been wanting to try making an olive oil cake. I checked out a few different recipes and found this one on the Saveur site. I really like this site. It's comprehensive, providing both Saveur recipes, but also recipes they've found across the web. Great pictures make the recipes hard to resist.

I happened to have some blood orange olive oil on hand, so I thought that would be a good alternative to plain olive oil, and punch up the orange a bit.

To dress this up a bit, I decided to serve it with a blueberry sauce and honey whip cream. For a garnish, I attempted candied basil leaves.  The basil tasted good, but I was hoping they'd firm up a bit. My friend suggested dipping the leaves in slightly whipped egg whites before sugaring them next time.

The orange flavor in the cake was subtle, but noticeable, and the cake nice and moist. The berries and whip cream were a great add, and everyone finished happy and full.

Olive Oil Cake (from Saveur)
Ingredients
1 tbsp. butter
3 cups plus 2 tbsp. flour
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1⁄4 tsp. lemon zest
3⁄4 cup quality extra-virgin olive oil
2⁄3 cup milk
3 tbsp. Grand Marnier
1 tbsp. baking powder


Blueberry Sauce and Honey Whip Cream instructions are below.





What to do:
Preheat oven to 325°. Grease an 11-cup bundt pan with butter and dust with flour. Set prepared pan aside.

Beat eggs and sugar together in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add remaining 3 cups flour, lemon zest, oil, milk, and liqueur and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined. Add baking powder and stir until thoroughly combined.

Spoon batter into prepared pan around ramekin or bowl or spoon batter into bundt pan and smooth out top with the back of the spoon. Bake until cake is deep golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted in center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Transfer cake to a wire rack to let cool completely, in its pan.

Blueberry Sauce
Mix frozen (thawed) or fresh berries with some orange zest, the juice of half and orange and about 1/2 tbsp of honey. Heat on the stove over medium heat to reduce and thicken the sauce to your liking.

Honey Whip Cream
While mixing heavy cream, add 1-2 tsp of vanilla and then honey to taste. I warmed the honey up before adding to the cream, in order to help it incorporate better.

This cake is one of those that you'd be able to serve anytime of day. I think it would work well as a breakfast bread, definitely a mid-day tea or coffee snack cake, and dressed up for dinner with a good fruit topping and whip cream.

The sauce was blueberries, orange zest and juice and honey.