Recipe #30: Rustic Olive Oil Cake with Honey Syrup

Recipe #30: Rustic Olive Oil Cake with Honey Syrup

Posted by Unknown

I was in the mood for cake but I have had such bad luck with cake I decided to stay away from vanilla or chocolate and do something completely different to see if I could gain my confidence back in the cake department.

The best ingredient in this cake is Grand Marnier - always a treat to cook with a little alcohol. Other interesting ingredients included orange juice, lemon zest, olive oil (hence the title) and whole milk.

As always there are several steps that go into this recipe so get all your ingredients ready and follow each step carefully. The most crucial step is the cooking time. Tom suggests overbaking vs. underbaking which was a relief to me being that my oven typically takes quite a long time to bake things so I just kept it in there until I knew it was completely baked. Surprisingly, it ended up baking pretty much exactly to what the recipe called for.

I pulled it out of the oven, let it cool, and carefully flipped it over onto a plate and then had to invert it once more - the SCARIEST part! I let it cool and then took a bite.

The result: WOW! This cake is just bursting with flavors. You can taste the grand marnier, the orange juice, and a hint of lemon. And ofcourse you can taste the olive oil which is so fun in a cake. The best thing about this is it lasts for several days and stays very moist. The top if the cake has a hard crust so the difference in textures is a nice touch. I actually preferred the cake without the honey syrup you can make to accompany the recipe.

For full recipe see page 295 in the Dahlia Bakery Cookbook