Lemon Recipe: Lemon Olive Oil Cake

Lemons are very dear here in Montana. It’s one of the things that really shocked me when I moved here. In New Jersey they were usually somewhere between 3 or 5 for a $1 where here they can run $1 or more each! What I usually end up doing is buying a big bag at the Costco and keeping a close eye on them. If I see that they are going soft I zest them to save for later then juice them and freeze the juice in ice cube trays. But truth be told I tend to use them before it even reaches that point. I tend to bake and cook a lot of things with lemon as a main flavor. Let’s list a few:

There are more but I don’t want to list you to death. Plus today we are discussing the beautiful simplicity of a lemon olive oil cake. The recipe is very straightforward and is from Epicurious.

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Lemon Recipe: Lemon Olive Oil Cake

serves 8 – 10

I cup cake flour
3/4 cup olive oil
4 egg whites
5 egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar split – 1/2 cup and 1/4 cup
zest of one lemon
1 1/2 TBSP fresh lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350°
Grease the bottom of a 9″ springform pan, add a parchment round and grease the round. Set aside.

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Stir the flour and lemon zest together and set aside

Using either a stand mixer with the whisk attached or a hand mixer, beat the egg yolks and sugar together until they are light and creamy. It takes around 3 minutes.
Add the olive oil, then the lemon juice. The recipe said the mixture might break at this point and not to worry if it did. Mine did not break.

In the bowl of a stand mixer – being sure it is clean and dry – or using a hand mixer with very clean beaters – whip the egg whites and salt until very foamy.
Add the 1/4 cup of sugar 1 TBS at a time and whip the whites to soft peaks.

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Fold the flour/lemon zest mixture into the egg yolk mixture until just combined.
Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites to lighten the batter, then carefully fold in the rest of the egg whites to maintain the lightness of the batter.

pour into pan and sprinkle with sugar — **I was making two cakes**

Pour the batter into the prepared springform pan. Tap it lightly a couple of times on the counter to remove any air bubbles.
Then sprinkle the top with sugar.
Bake the cake in the preheated oven until puffed and golden and a toothpick or the like comes out dry. About 45 minutes.

Let it sit for 10 minutes on a wire rack and then loosen the cake from the pan by running a knife along the side. Remove the side of the pan and let cool for 75 minutes before serving

How Was the Lemon Recipe?

This was a really lovely cake. I made two and sent one off to a friend while we enjoyed the other. Baking is really my sanity saver these days. Sprinkling the sugar on top leaves it with a really nice crunch. The lemon flavor really comes through which the hubby loved as lemon is his favorite flavor for desserts. I did give him a splurge one night since I had some lemon curd in the ‘fridge: I put a nice dollop on top of a piece of cake and then added some huckleberries. He was in heaven.

I just had mine plain as I really like the simplicity of this lemon recipe. Using olive oil as the fat does make for a delicious cake as I showed in my Plum Blood Orange Upside Down Cake. There is just something wonderful about these desserts!