Orange Olive-Oil Cake | Torta D’olio D’oliva

Don’t let a simple cake like this fool you. It delivers spectacular flavor, uses wholesome ingredients, and easy to mix by hand. If you attend to the details, this cake will sing. Best of all, an Italian orange olive-oil cake has the big advantage of using 100% olive oil which has less saturated fat and no dietary cholesterol. Serve it for breakfast with fresh fruits and a cup of latte. In other times during the day, serve it with prosecco or ice cream, you’ll be a happy camper.

Besides, olive oil is preferred over butter in recipes that include spices and citrus on the ingredient list.

What to look for when you buy olive oil:

• Most important is its freshness, because olive oil is perishable.
• Once opened, it retains its peak flavor for three to four weeks.
• Look for a brand with date-labelling (the month and year of harvest).
• When warmed, fresh olive oil smells like olives.

Back to the orange olive-oil cake, one advice regarding the ingredients: Don’t skim on the amount of orange zest, or high-quality extra virgin olive oil or whole milk. This simple cake needs every one of these ingredients for it to shine and you taste them in the cake. Since there is a quite lot of zest (from two oranges), more than most recipes, I thought I can get away with using less. Of course you can, but the flavor suffers immensely. Therefore, I won’t cut back on the orange zest. It flavors the olive oil as well the batter. Olive-oil cake works best with the full throttle orange flavor. Period.

Best advice I can give when it comes to the cake batter: Do not overmix. A high degree of gluten development from over-mixing would result in a dense cake. Additionally, the use of cake or pastry flour (lower amount of protein) is a good alternative to all-purpose flour.

I was not pleased with cracks showing on top of the orange olive-oil cake the first few times I made it. Subsequently, I changed a few things: pan size, oven temperature, mixing in a stand mixer. Nothing seems to work well together to promote evening baking of this cake. Then the water-bath method in baking creme brulee comes to mind. And there are ways to devise a less-cumbersome technique. Next, I wrap an aluminum foil collar around the cake pan in order to prevent the side of the pan from heating up too rapidly. That does it!

To make sure all the cylinders are firing in ensuring even baking, put the cake pan on the bottom third rack of the oven. Use conventional mode in the oven set at 350°F, with the convection fan off. Bake for about 50 minutes, until the toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

The recipe is good for an 8-inch round cake. If you use a 9-inch cake, the cheat sheet below gives you the amount you need in grams. You’d need a scale to measure the ingredients accurately. As always, I use a scale for all my baking. It’s one of my best and reliable friends in the kitchen.

Print Recipe

Orange Olive-Oil Cake

Ingredients

• 156 grams of all-purpose flour about 1 1/3 cups
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt or 1/2 teaspoon of table salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• zest of 2 navel oranges
• 1/4 cup fresh orange juice
• 2/3 cup whole milk
• 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Instructions

1

Preheat oven to 350° F. Place a rack in the bottom third of the oven. Line the bottom of an 8-inch cake pan with a circle of parchment paper.

2

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and the salt.

3

In a medium size bowl, whisk together sugar, zest, eggs, orange juice, milk and the olive oil until well combined.

4

Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the flour mixture. Stir until just mixed, scraping down the sides and the bottom with a spatula to make sure you incorporated all of the flour. Do not over mix. There may be some small lumps in the batter. It is fine.

5

Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake for about 45 to 50 minutes. The top will be nicely browned and a cake tester will come out with a few moist crumbs.

6

Let cool for only 5 minutes. Run a knife around the sides of the pan and then turn the cake out onto a cooling rack.

Notes

Adapted from Jim Lahey's Sullivan Street Bakery