Baking With Olive Oil

If there’s one thing that’s in my cupboard at all times, it’s great quality olive oil. No supermarket oils for me. I gladly will admit that I’m sort of an olive oil snob. At any given time I have at least two or three bottles of extra-virgin oil from various producers. Right now I am happy to say that I have a huge tin of fabulous oil from Umbria, thanks to the folks at Genius Loci-a charming inn located right outside of the medieval town of Bevagna. Of course if you are staying there you will have the opportunity to buy the oil from their farm, but for the past two years they have offered to ship their oil to you right after the fall harvest and pressing and I willingly signed up.

We’ve been enjoying the oil nightly in our salads, but I’ve had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to use it in a cake. When a friend dropped off a bag of gorgeous blood oranges the other day I immediately knew that they would be perfect in an olive oil cake. The recipe is fairly simple and with the juice from the blood oranges, the batter was a lovely shade of pink! I wondered if the cake would be pink once baked, but it was yellow, flecked with bright orange zest.

My oven is in need of some kind of work and to be honest, I probably shouldn’t be baking. The cake was done sooner than I had anticipated, so I would say check on it before 50 minutes. It will rise in baking and then deflate in the center as it cools. Regardless of how it looks, it is delicious-incredibly moist and with a lucious fresh orange flavor.

Orange Olive Oil Cake

1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1-3/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoon grated orange zest
2/3 cup fresh orange juice
2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9″ cake or springform pan. If using a cake pan, line the bottom with a piece of parchment paper.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In the bowl of a mixer, beat eggs and gradually add the sugar beating until the mixture is light in color and fluffy. In a small bowl whisk together the olive oil, zest and orange juice. Add the flour and oil mixture to egg/butter mixture in three parts, beginning and ending with flour. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for about 50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on rack for 15 minutes. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and serve.

Recipe from Alexandra’s Kitchen.