Dom in the Kitchen Homepage

Recipes from my Lincolnshire kitchen

olive oil and blood-orange cake – my bloody valentine

by

… some of my slightly older readers may remember a time when there was no other option but vegetable oil.  Good old-fashioned sun-flower oil, use it for everything.  This was in the blurry days after lard became evil but well before anyone British born and bred had ever hear of olive oil, let alone the phrase extra virgin… salad dressings came in a bottle and were usually of the creamed variety.  Fortunately with the popularity of Mediterranean travel and the gentle persuasion of people such as Sir Terrance Conran and his terracotta styled 1980’s we seemed to have embraced it into the bosom of our homes and i’m sure, like me, many of you could not imagine a world without it.  In fact we now seem to have gone off into another direction and are beginning to treat EVOO with a reverence once only deemed fit for wine but now bestowed to the humblest of ingredients from coffee to flour. I think i’ve been cooking with EVOO for a good twenty years now but rarely bake it into cakes which is madness as it tastes rather sublime…

olive oil and blood-orange cake
i’m trying to sneak in some mid-week bakes from the London kitchen but with mixed results.  As you know I have issues with the London oven, it’s fine for savoury things that are happy with a blast of heat with no timings needed but with anything other than a tray-bake i’ve had real problems… but i’m a persistent bugger and I think I cracked it with this little beauty of a cake which rose gloriously and is wonderfully light and moist inside… the taste is a little unusual but I think that is all for the best… I also think this is a perfect cake for a bloody valentine which is why I added the blood red honey and icing topping but then I’m a little sick in the head like that!

for the cake
2 small seedless blood oranges – skin on
80ml extra virgin olive oil
260g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
4 large eggs
300g sugar

to decorate
2 tablespoons orange blossom honey (or regular honey)
150g icing sugar
a few drops of red food colouring (optional)

grease and line a 20cm spring-form cake tin and preheat your oven to 180C

sieve the flour, salt  and baking powder together

with a sharp knife cut a slither off the top and bottom of both oranges to remove the stalk and navel and then place the oranges in a bowl and blitz them with a hand-held blender until nearly smooth – this stage could also be done in a countertop blender – then add the olive oil and blitz again until fully blended although it doesn’t need to be entirely smooth

in another bowl whisk the eggs until light and frothy then slowly and alternately fold one third of the egg followed by one third of the flour into the orange and oil mixture, gently so as not to knock the air out of the whisked eggs

pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 50-60 mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean

set aside to cool

to make the icing simply place the honey into a pan and heat gently, then add the sugar and food colouring if using and stir together and paint onto the cooled cake.

eat and of course, enjoy!

Share this post:

Share on LinkedIn

Reader Interactions

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Comments

  3. Choclette says

    Oh my word Dom, that sounds so tempting. Your photos are really good too – seriously need to get my head around this styling business. I think Rapeseed oil is quickly climbing the ranks of oils with everyone saying it's even better for your than EVOO. Interesting, time will tell on that one, but I do love the flavour of olive.

  5. Susan Lindquist says

    I'd never heard of baking with olive oil until I was at kaffeetrinken with a German friend and her friend brought and olive oil cake to share with us … it was a revelation! This cake of yours reminds me of a clementine cake that my daughter made last winter when the little beauties were on sale … love your spin on things, Dom! The icing is inspired!

  8. Mark Willis says

    Your words remind me of my first encounter with olive oil, when my French Student Exchange partner came to stay. He wanted (nay, demanded!) olive oil on his salad, and we searched high and low for some and found it in the chemists' – it was intended to help with softening ear-wax!

  10. Ocean Breezes and Country Sneezes says

    I have baked with it once or twice, because I was desperate and I think it was in brownies . . . I don't recall loving the taste, but it wasn't disgusting either! LOL ~ your “Bloody Valentine” title sounds very English! I love it!

  13. Jean says

    When I was a little girl, olive oil was something you got from the chemist in tiny bottles, at huge expense, for medicinal purposes only. How things have improved!
    This looks wonderful,I love the red coloured exterior.

  15. Roland Moses says

    A beautiful post and recipe. I've been glugging the OO since birth, and i know you have too Dom. But don't you find it burns at a low remperature? Perfect for everything else, including bathing. Rapeseed is good for frying at high temperature. Anyway, this cake is perfect, I'll bake it come Friday. Can't wait.

  16. Adam Garratt says

    I love how our nation has become such a sponge for all the different cuisines but still keeping our own culinary dentity (which In my view is every growing). Most of what we eat has been an import of some kind, the romans gave us pasta and parsnips, the Iranians gave us carrots and of course the italians olive oil.

    I cannot tell you how lovely this cake looks, I don't eat anywhere near enough fruit as I should do but I remember blood oranges with fondess, it's sweet slightly bitter red juice making a mess of my freshly cleaned shirt.