Olive Oil, Clementine and Almond cake (egg-free)

This is one of the weirdest cakes I have ever made.  I adapted the recipe from an old little baking book I’ve had for over 10 years (called Baking by Emma Patmore).  I love this little book and have used it umpteen times over the years but admittedly the recipes are a bit hit and miss so you can never tell how they will turn out. 

However, this one, titled ‘Olive Oil, Fruit and Nut Cake’ attracted me because of the olive oil ingredient.  Something I have been wanting to try in a cake for a while now.  It also had no eggs which is maybe what made this batter so strange to handle.

Well, from the start I could tell that the 50g of sugar specified in the recipe would not make it sweet enough so I increased the amount and tweaked the amounts of the other ingredients to balance the recipe.

Maybe I shouldn’t have experimented with the recipe without trying it out in its original form first.  The batter was dough-like and oily and I was very close to just chucking this away.

I’m glad I persevered though and saw it through to being baked because it turned out to be a very tasty, dense, crusty cake with an amazingly gentle Clementine flavour.  I don’t know if it would work with any other citrus as even oranges are a little too sharp and despite the increase in sugar this still wasn’t a very sweet cake.

Very, very different from the usual light airy sponge, this cake doesn’t rise very much and looks almost raw in the middle and needs a dollop of cream on top, but I feel it has its own charm and I really enjoyed it.  I also loved the pairing of Clementine with almonds which is the second time I have tried it now after my Clementine and Clove Biscuits.

Anyway, it’s a good recipe to have if you have any friends or family who are allergic to eggs, although it’s not the best eggless recipe I have ever tasted.  That goes to a chocolate cake I made from Teawith Bea’s which I will make again soon I think.

Olive Oil, Clementine and Almond Cake (adapted from Baking by Emma Patmore)

·         250g plain flour

·         1 ½ tsp baking powder

·         75g caster sugar

·         6 Clementines, zest

·         50ml Clementine juice

·         75ml single cream

·         125ml olive oil

·         50g flaked almonds

Preheat the oven 200 C, prepare a 7” round cake tin.

Sift together the flour and baking powder and stir in the sugar.

Combine the Clementine juice, zest, single cream and oil together.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet.

Beat together until the flour and sugar is well incorporated into the wet ingredients.  I found I had to use an electric beater as beating by hand the oil wasn’t absorbing into the mixture very well.

Place the mixture into the tin and bake for at least 40 minutes and longer if needed.  If you find the cake is browning too much on top then add a foil cap about 30 minutes into baking.  When a skewer comes out without too much moisture on it, it is done.