Olive Oil Cake

Infused with thyme, rosemary, lime and lemon zest, this cake became my little project of experimentation last weekend. I wanted to make an olive oil cake, but after searching for the recipes, unless I gashed myself to bleed into oranges, magically transforming them into blood oranges, it wasn't going to happen (this is the love hate relationship with living in a country that sells seasonally available produce). Anyhow, without enough plasters to actually contemplate making my very own blood oranges, I decided I only needed the citrus element, and what better way to introduce some herbs than with olive oil! The herb part came after I made a joke about a Rosemary and Thyme cake to which my other half thought i was deadly serious, and let me tell you he is on this occasion within reason. The light citrus, grassy, slightly savoury but just sweet enough cake that came out of this experiment was indeed, rather tasty.
Oh and it was very easy to do too!

Ingredients:

• 175ml of olive oil (the better the quality, the better the cake)
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Zest of 1 lime
• 150g plain flour, with 1tsp of baking powder and 1tsp bi-carbonate of soda
• 5 egg yolks
• 4 egg whites
• 1/2tsp salt
• 150g sugar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary needles, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme, leaves pulled from stems

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180ºC. Mix the zests and flour in a bowl until combined and set aside.

Beat the egg yolks with 100g of the sugar until thick and pale, mix in the olive oil and herbs and beat until combined. Next add the flour and zest mix and beat well until all ingredients are mixed. At this point the mix will become very thick so be careful not to over beat and dont worry too much as you will thin it out later.

Take a clean bowl and add the egg whites and salt and whisk until light and foamy, then add the rest of the sugar (50g) a little at a time while constantly whisking until all the sugar has been added and the egg whites hold soft peaks. You want this to stiff enough to hold its shape, but not overworked. You can use an electric whisk for this but I did't have that luxury, however I do now have some cracking muscles!

Fold a third of the egg whites into the yolk mix (to thin it a little) and gently add the rest of the egg whites, taking care not to knock the air out. Fold well until no white streaks show. Pour this mix into a greased/lined tin and bake for around 45mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

Before starting this I remembered how I had thrown away my springform tin, so I needed to improvise a little, I used a terracotta earthenware dish instead, lining the bottom with a circle of greaseproof paper then oiling the sides. For an easy way to remove cakes from tins/dishes like this, simply line 2 strips of greaseproof in a cross at the bottom of the dish, this means you have something to lift it out with without it crumbling everywhere!

To serve I simply added a fresh sprig of Thyme and a generous scoop of delicious raspberry sorbet! (bought from the best ice-cream shop in Barcelona)