Blood Orange, Rosemary and Olive Oil Cake with Citrus Compote Recipe

eatliveescapedigital

Nov 30

This recipe is from new cookbook Recipes for a Lifetime of Beautiful Cooking by Danielle Alvarez with Libby Travers.

This is a perfect winter cake: the fruitiness of the oil, the freshness of the citrus, and the herbal tones of the rosemary. It's taken years to get this recipe right. I've had so many olive oil cakes that have fallen short of my expectations: some too dense and lacking the lightness and joy of a butter cake; others where the olive oil feels more like a gimmick than a boon. Time has taught me that it's the eggs that are the key – you need a lot! Consequently, this is a rather large cake (8 eggs will do that) requiring a bundt (ring) tin to ensure it cooks through to the centre without becoming dry on the edges. These tins make for a fabulous-looking cake, definitely a worthy investment!

Ingredients (makes 1 bundt cake 12-14 slices)

Cake
2 blood oranges (or navel oranges)
450 g (1 lb) plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 tablespoons chopped rosemary
60 g (2¼ oz) almond meal
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
320 g (11¼ oz) white (granulated) sugar
8 eggs 320 ml (11 fl oz) extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for greasing
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Citrus compote
3 blood oranges (or navel oranges)
110 g (3¾ oz) white (granulated) sugar
250 ml (9 fl oz) water
Pinch of fine sea salt

To serve
Greek-style plain yoghurt

To make the cake

Preheat your oven to 155°C (310°F) fan-forced. Grease a large bundt tin with olive oil (ideally, olive oil spray) followed by a dusting of flour. Tap out any excess flour.
Cut the stem end off the two blood oranges and process them, skin and all, in a blender or food processor to a fine pulp. Set aside.
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, rosemary, almond meal and salt. Set aside. Add the sugar and eggs to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, and beat on a medium–high speed until light, airy and fluffy. This will take about 6–8 minutes. With the machine running, slowly stream in the olive oil, followed by the vanilla extract, then the puréed oranges. Stop the machine and dump in the flour mixture. Turn the machine on to low and mix until just combined with no lumps of flour remaining. Pour the batter into the tin.
Bake for 50–60 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the tallest part of the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool completely in the tin before tipping it out.

To make the citrus compote

Peel the zest off the oranges using a vegetable peeler. Use a small paring knife to slice away any white pith from the zest, then cut the zest into long, thin slivers, as thin as you can get them.
Add the zest slivers to a small saucepan with the sugar, water and salt and cook over a low heat for about 15 minutes, until the syrup thickens and the zest candies. Set aside to cool.
While the syrup cools, use a small paring knife to remove all the white pith from the oranges, then cut the segments out (see note over page). Stir the orange segments into the cooled syrup.
To serve, slice and serve the cake with the citrus compote and a spoonful of yoghurt.

Note: When carefully cut, citrus segments are elegant and refined – a world apart from the orange quarters on a sports field! Using a small, sharp knife, run the blade along the inside of the dividing membranes of the orange, popping out each neat, naked segment as you go. Turn the membranes over like the pages of a book as you make your way around the orange. Don't forget to squeeze the juice that is left in the core into the syrup.