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.

Clementine and Clove Biscuits

I’ve been making biscuits a lot lately, which is pretty unusual since I’m very much a cake person.  I made one of the easiest biscuits ever on Christmas Day under orders from my sister who was making the dinner and needed an extra pair of hands to make the biscuits.

Her idea was very simple but very effective.  She had the idea to cut out biscuits from a roll of shop bought sweet shortcrust pastry that had been lying in the fridge for a while.  She then made me give each one a wash with some egg white and sprinkle them with caster sugar and top with flaked almonds.  I had the idea of topping some with cinnamon and Clementine zest instead of the flaked almonds. 

These turned out very tasty and are great to make if you are in a hurry.  Sorry I didn’t take any pictures, but I was making these in an intense rush as I didn’t want to miss the start of the Christmas Dr Who episode which is the highlight of Christmas TV for me.

Anyway, my biscuit making adventures didn’t stop there and I tried cut-out sugar biscuits for the seventh time – and they still spread in the oven!  I don’t know how to get them to keep their shape, I’ve even tried freezing them before placing them in the oven but they still spread.  I’ll keep trying though as, although they look weird after spreading, they still taste great.

Another recipe I tried were these Clementine and Clove biscuits.  This recipe is heavily adapted from the Hairy Bikers on the BBC who made these into Lemon and Cardamom Stamp Cookies.  I modified the recipe by replacing the citrus and spice, using freshly ground almonds and adding spelt flour to the recipe.  We have so many Clementines in the house right now that need to be used up that I’ve been devising ways to do so.  Prepare for more Clementine recipes coming soon!

My natural inclination was to pair these with cinnamon (as it is with all things) but for some reason I had cloves stuck in my head.  It’s odd as I didn’t even have any ground cloves at home and had to go buy some which is not how I usually bake – it’s almost always with things I already have to hand.  But the desire for this flavour combination was persisting in my head so I went with it.

I’m glad I did as they impart something different and unique compared to my usual favourite spice, cinnamon.  They really were lovely, just slightly sweet, slightly crumbly and completely moreish.  It’s funny but no one could quite guess what it was.  One person tasted and exclaimed ‘hmm these are soo good.  They’re so coconutty!’.  There’s no coconut in these at all.  Another person remarked ‘wow they’re so gingery’.  There’s also no ginger in these at all. 

Everyone loved them though, even if they couldn’t quite place the spice (which is used abundantly in our savoury dishes but was a first in a sweet).  I think I’ve gotten them too used to cinnamon in my sweet concoctions.  

I'm surprised they didn't figure out it had almonds as that is what gave these such a tender, crumbly, melt in the mouth texture.

I so so sooo wanted to dip these into melted chocolate – just a half dip so they would be covered in a dark chocolate on one half of the biscuit.  Only they wouldn’t let me.  I think I’ve mentioned that my family aren’t too overly keen on sweet icings and toppings or too many ‘frills’.  They much rather prefer a plain well made un-iced sponge cake to a frosted cupcake or layer cake.  I just thought melted dark chocolate would have looked nice and would have gone very well with the flavours...

Clementine and Clove Biscuits

·         225g butter, softened

·         150g granulated sugar

·         3 clementines, zest only

·         75g freshly ground almonds

·         75g spelt flour

·         200g plain flour

·         1 level tsp ground cloves

Preheat oven to 180C and line two baking trays with either greaseproof paper or foil.  Lightly spray the lined trays with a little oil.

Whisk the butter, sugar and zest in a large bowl until light and fluffy.

Combine together the dry ingredients; almonds, flours and cloves.  Add these to the butter mix and bring together into a dough.

Divide the dough in half, then make each half into 12 balls by rolling between your palms.  You should have 24 balls.

Place 12 balls on each baking tray.  You can either flatten them down with a cookie stamp if you have one or with the back of a flat-bottom glass like I did.  Don’t put too much pressure on them – you don’t want to squish them completely flat.

Bake for about 15 minutes until the edges are golden.

Dip them in chocolate please.