Lou Lou’s Citrus Olive Oil Cake Recipe
Over a decade ago when Marc Vetri first published his cookbook Rustic Italian Food my close friend Dina and I took a cooking class with him. Vetri was in Boston at Barbara Lynch’s Test Kitchen (now closed), where she hosted her friends in a small setting of 10 people. A visiting chef cooked a dinner in front of us, explaining as she or he went along, and then we ate together. Vetri served olive oil cake for dessert, and it’s the first one I ever tasted. I loved the subtlety of it — how the sweetness doesn’t clobber your tongue — and the balance of citrus with the earthiness of the olive oil.
A month after taking Vetri’s class, Dina and I had a dinner party serving the same menu, including the olive oil cake. The whole thing was perfect, really, but the olive oil cake felt revelatory at that time, at least to our guests (it has since become quite popular).
I didn’t have the Vetri recipe handy on Easter when I had promised to bring an olive oil cake to a friend’s home for brunch. My friend Lou Lou (she’s from L.A.) sent me her recipe. I compared it to Vetri’s after, and they’re very close.
Everyone at Easter said they liked it, so here it is. A perfect spring dessert.
Ingredients
-1 cup olive oil
-3 eggs
-3/4 to 1 cup granulated sugar (depending on your sweet tooth)
-2 tsp vanilla extract
-1 tsp almond extract
-the juice from an orange or lemon (don't need more than 3/4 cup)
-zest from 1 small orange or lemon
-1 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1/2 baking soda
-2 cups all purpose flour
-1 cup whole milk
-powdered sugar for dusting
Directions
- Whisk together olive oil, eggs and sugar
- Add vanilla, almond, zest and juice. Whisk to combine.
- Sift together salt, baking powder, baking soda, and flour. Alternating with the milk, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in a couple batches. Don't over-mix, you just want to combine.
- Pour the batter into greased baking dish. Bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes until it passes the toothpick test with no goop
- Once cooled, sift powdered sugar on top
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