Lemon Olive Oil Cake

This is a cake that I have wanted to make for a really long time! I’m a very traditional baker: flour, sugar, butter, etc. I’d seen recipes now that use olive oil instead of butter and I thought that would be very interesting and different. I’d even seen a recipe for lemon olive oil cookies, which used lemon-infused olive oil in the cookie dough. That seemed so interesting that I went and picked up some lemon olive oil. Of course now I can’t find that cookie recipe, but I’m sure I will eventually track it down!

I had a birthday at work coming up and I really wanted to use the lemon olive oil. I searched and found many cakes that used plain olive oil and that was usually paired with oranges. So I picked this recipe and did a little bit of adapting. I used lemon zest, obviously, and used half plain olive oil and half lemon olive oil. I also figured that 1-1/5 cups of lemon juice would really be a lot (and be REALLY strong), so I used the juice of 3 lemons and then water.

Since I am taking this to work for a celebration, I haven’t had a taste of this yet! It baked up beautifully so I am really expecting this to be a bit hit. I think that the lemon flavor will be strong but not over-powering. I love a good lemon cake and I happy to give this new version a try.

3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 3/4 teaspoon salt
5 eggs
3 cups sugar
3/4 cup mild extra-virgin olive oil
¾ cup lemon olive oil
Zest of 3 lemons
Juice of 3 lemons, plus water to make 1-1/2 cups
Confectioners’ sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12-15 cup Bundt or Angel Food Cake pan.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the eggs on medium until well-combined, about 1 minute. Slowly add the sugar and continue beating until thick and pale yellow, about 3 minutes. On low speed, add 1/3 of the flour mixture and then the plain olive oil, then another 1/3 of the flour mixture, the lemon olive oil, and then the final 1/3 of the flour mixture. Do not over beat. Pour in the lemon zest and lemon juice/water mixture and stir to bring the batter together.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 1-1/4 hours, until a cake tester comes out with a few moist crumbs. Check the cake half way through the baking time; if the top is browning too quickly, cover lightly with foil.

Transfer the cake to a wire rack and cool for 15 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool completely on the wire rack. Cover and let it sit overnight. Dust with powdered sugar just before serving.

Recipe adapted from Arctic Garden Studio