Sometimes you just have to have a cake and when you do it has to be the right cake. This olive oil cake is extremely moist and soft and will be your new favourite cake base ever.
I topped it with pears which I love with the olive oil cake but you could also use raspberries, blueberries, plums or apples. You basically want to use any fruit that isn’t too watery or else the dough will become watery and take ages to cook.
You know I have a not-so-healthy obsession with silvered / flaked almonds and so I just had to put them on top! Couldn’t help myself but also, I didn’t even try to ;).
I took this cake to a dinner I had (yes, cut and all lol) and they LOVED it! They actually asked to take home the pieces that were left and that’s what I call a successful recipe.
OK so let’s talk pairing. This cake is insane with a cup of tea or coffee. Like. Insane. You’ll be trapped in the following never-ending cycle: “oh no! I ran out of tea for my cake” followed by “oh no! I ran out of cake for my tea!”.
Ingredients
For the cake batter:
- 360 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 200 g sugar
- 4 eggs
- 4 tbsp honey
- 180 ml milk
- 1 tsp ground cardamom
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- Zest from 2 limes
- 480 g all-purpose flour
- 2 pears
For cooking and garnishing:
- Vegetable oil for greasing the mould
- 2 tbsp all-purpose flour to flour the mould
- Flaked / silvered almonds to garnish
- Powdered sugar to dust optional
Instructions
- Mix the olive oil with the sugar and honey using a whisk.
- Add the eggs and milk and mix again.
- Add the dry ingredients (cardamom, salt, baking powder, flour) as well as the lime zest and give it a last mix.
- Grease the mould lightly using a bit of vegetable oil and spreading it with kitchen paper. Stick a piece of baking paper cut to size and grease on top as well. Add a bit of flour and tap the mould to stick a light coat all around. Remove any excess.
- Put the batter inside the mould.
- Cut pears in half, core and slice. We do this at the very last minute to prevent them from going dark on the inside.
- Lay the pears on the top of the cake along with the almonds.
- Take to a preheated oven at 180C for 40min or until you can insert a pointy knife and it comes out clean. Remember that when you do this you need to leave the knife inside for 3 seconds before removing it so the dough can stick to it if any is left uncooked.
- Check the cake at 20 and 30 to see if it’s golden enough on top. If it is then cover with tin foil for the rest of the cooking process.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool down completely before unmoulding.
- Dust with icing sugar and serve.
