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Orange, Almond, Olive Oil Cake

April 14, 2016 by Jess Leave a Comment

Orange Olive Oil Cake

On my way home from vacation, I am usually certain that I will eat nothing but lettuce for the next three weeks.  I wasn’t home three days before I was back in the kitchen making this Orange Almond Olive Oil Cake.  (There’s a mouth full for ya!)  One of the things we brought home from our trip to Siena and Florence (besides a case of wine and heaps of dirty laundry) was 1/2 an open bottle of Vin Santo.  For the uninitiated, Vin Santo is a Tuscan dessert wine, usually made from Trebbiano and Malvasia.  After they’re harvested, the grapes are dried on straw mats to concentrate the sugars, which gives Vin Santo a beautiful caramel-ly, nutty flavor.

Orange Olive Oil Cake

We’re not usually big on sweet wine, but found ourselves easily adopting the Tuscan tradition of ending dinner with a few small biscotti and a tiny glass of Vin Santo.  Realizing that *someone* already munched their way through the last of the biscotti we had picked up, I was hunting for a not-too-sweet dessert to try.  I immediately thought of a dense, moist, almond olive oil cake that one of my colleagues brought to the office a few years ago.  It was so delicious, and in my mind “so Italian.”  I loved the way her cake turned out, but I was looking for something a little more delicate.  So, I decided to work from a recipe I found in Food & Wine for Orange Olive Oil Cake. Basically, I swapped out part of the flour for almond meal and added a teaspoon of almond extract for good measure.  Voila! Orange Almond Olive Oil Cake.

Orange Olive Oil Cake

We loved the way this cake came out and loved the way the almond-y flavor of the cake brought out the nuttiness in the wine.

Orange, Almond, Olive Oil Cake
Author: Jess
Prep time: 20 mins
Cook time: 50 mins
Total time: 1 hour 10 mins
Serves: 12 slices
This recipe is slightly adapted from Food & Wine.
Ingredients
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup almond meal
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons finely grated orange zest
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup fresh orange juice
  • 1 cup mild extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract
  • Powdered sugar (for sprinkling on top)
  • Butter (for greasing the pan)
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
  2. Grease a 9″ cake pan with butter and line the bottom with parchment. Butter the parchment as well and then flour the pan.
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar, orange zest and salt. In a medium bowl, stir together the olive oil and orange juice. Slowly add the olive oil mixture into the eggs. Stir in the baking powder, almond meal and flour half a cup at a time and mix until smooth.
  4. Transfer the batter into the parchment-lined pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until golden. (A toothpick in the center should come out clean.) Let the cake cool completely in the pan before removing.
  5. Sift powdered sugar on top and garnish with orange zest and chopped, toasted almonds.
3.5.3208

 

Filed Under: cook, desserts Tagged With: dessert, easy, entertaining

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