rosemary olive oil cake with chocolate
Another cake I got excited about and made repeatedly in the last few months was a rosemary olive oil cake with chocolate chips, based on a recipe from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce. The recipe was shared in a blog post by her editor, and presented with weights by Heidi Swanson at 101cookbooks.com where I first saw it.
I've tried a few olive oil cakes and muffins, and this one's definitely the winner. The the olive oil is a major component of the flavour profile, more so that other recipes I've tried, and is used to great effect with the rosemary and dark chocolate. It's also very easily mixed by hand, if that's a draw for you.
This recipe is meant to be made with a combination of spelt and all-purpose flour. If you want to try that, refer to the links in the first paragraph, but I'm going to present below what I use, for a cake using only all-purpose flour.
I've been too lazy to seek out spelt flour, and the comments on Heidi's post said to substitute flours by weight. I bake this recipe using the metric weights Heidi provides for dry ingredients and it works fine, but I've noticed Heidi's conversion factors don't track with what I find online. (I've also discovered she plays fast and loose converting from ounces to grams, but these differences are less drastic.)
Heidi used 140 g/cup all-purpose flour to convert Kim's recipe, but 120 to 125 g seems more typical from a survey of the internet. This matters because I want to give you a volume to use if you make this with only all-purpose flour. Anyway, when I weigh a cup of all-purpose flour as I would have filled the cup (gently spooning, without sifting before hand) I get 125 g/cup, so I am going to say the volume of 290 g all-purpose flour is 2 1/3 cups.
Her sugar weight is odd, too, and sugar isn't easily compacted, so I don't know how or why she did what she did. The weight she gives is 115 g, which is approximately 1/4 + 1/3 cups sugar, 1/6 cup less than 3/4 cup from the original recipe. I don't think it needs to be sweeter, so I'm going to stick with the weird quantity, but use more if that's your taste.
Heidi also really likes the effect of the different sized shards and chunks you get from chopping chocolate, but I don't like the mess of chopping chocolate, so I use chips. I've added a volume for chocolate chips as well.
I also increased the quantity of rosemary.
Rosemary Olive Oil Chocolate Cake
3 eggs
3/4 cup whole or 2% milk
1 cup olive oil (go for one with a stronger flavour)
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
290 g / 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
115 g / 1/4 + 1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
140 g / 5 oz. dark or bittersweet chocolate chopped into 1/2" pieces (3/4 cup chocolate chips)
up to 2 tbsp sugar for top crunch, optional
Preheat the oven to 350F. Oil and line the bottom of a 9" cake pan* with parchement paper.
In a medium-large bowl, beat 3 eggs with a fork. Beat in milk. Add oil. Chop the rosemary as finely as possible and add to egg/milk/oil.
In a second larger bowl, measure the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.) Combine well by alternating whisking and stirring with a spoon a couple of times, making sure to spoon up the contents at the bottom of the the bowl. Beat egg-milk-oil mixture until well combined, and pour over flour mixture. Fold in roughly with a spatula until almost all the flour is wet, add the chocolate and continue folding until all the flour is wet and the chocolate is well distributed.
Pour into prepared pan and sprinkle the second sugar over the top if using. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes or until a toothpick poked in the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool, run a knife around the edges, and demold. Or serve warm in the pan, as you like.
This is really really delicious and different! With restraint, I made it last five days stored in the pan with a plate on top.
*You can obviously use other pans, possibly with slightly different baking times. Test for doneness ahead of time, particularly for smaller cakes. Kim originally wrote the recipe for a 9.5" fluted tart pan, which may lend itself better to serving warm out of the pan. Heidi used a long, odd-sized loaf pan. For Christmas, I made several batches using either two 6" cake pans, or the set of four mini 5" loaf pans (which needed only 35 min baking time) my mom found me at a garage sale. Wrapped in plastic cling wrap with a branch of rosemary on top (or twisted in a wreath) they made very pretty Christmas gifts.
I've tried a few olive oil cakes and muffins, and this one's definitely the winner. The the olive oil is a major component of the flavour profile, more so that other recipes I've tried, and is used to great effect with the rosemary and dark chocolate. It's also very easily mixed by hand, if that's a draw for you.
This recipe is meant to be made with a combination of spelt and all-purpose flour. If you want to try that, refer to the links in the first paragraph, but I'm going to present below what I use, for a cake using only all-purpose flour.
I've been too lazy to seek out spelt flour, and the comments on Heidi's post said to substitute flours by weight. I bake this recipe using the metric weights Heidi provides for dry ingredients and it works fine, but I've noticed Heidi's conversion factors don't track with what I find online. (I've also discovered she plays fast and loose converting from ounces to grams, but these differences are less drastic.)
Heidi used 140 g/cup all-purpose flour to convert Kim's recipe, but 120 to 125 g seems more typical from a survey of the internet. This matters because I want to give you a volume to use if you make this with only all-purpose flour. Anyway, when I weigh a cup of all-purpose flour as I would have filled the cup (gently spooning, without sifting before hand) I get 125 g/cup, so I am going to say the volume of 290 g all-purpose flour is 2 1/3 cups.
Her sugar weight is odd, too, and sugar isn't easily compacted, so I don't know how or why she did what she did. The weight she gives is 115 g, which is approximately 1/4 + 1/3 cups sugar, 1/6 cup less than 3/4 cup from the original recipe. I don't think it needs to be sweeter, so I'm going to stick with the weird quantity, but use more if that's your taste.
Heidi also really likes the effect of the different sized shards and chunks you get from chopping chocolate, but I don't like the mess of chopping chocolate, so I use chips. I've added a volume for chocolate chips as well.
I also increased the quantity of rosemary.
Rosemary Olive Oil Chocolate Cake
3 eggs
3/4 cup whole or 2% milk
1 cup olive oil (go for one with a stronger flavour)
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary
290 g / 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
115 g / 1/4 + 1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
140 g / 5 oz. dark or bittersweet chocolate chopped into 1/2" pieces (3/4 cup chocolate chips)
up to 2 tbsp sugar for top crunch, optional
Preheat the oven to 350F. Oil and line the bottom of a 9" cake pan* with parchement paper.
In a medium-large bowl, beat 3 eggs with a fork. Beat in milk. Add oil. Chop the rosemary as finely as possible and add to egg/milk/oil.
In a second larger bowl, measure the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.) Combine well by alternating whisking and stirring with a spoon a couple of times, making sure to spoon up the contents at the bottom of the the bowl. Beat egg-milk-oil mixture until well combined, and pour over flour mixture. Fold in roughly with a spatula until almost all the flour is wet, add the chocolate and continue folding until all the flour is wet and the chocolate is well distributed.
Pour into prepared pan and sprinkle the second sugar over the top if using. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes or until a toothpick poked in the centre comes out clean.
Allow to cool, run a knife around the edges, and demold. Or serve warm in the pan, as you like.
This is really really delicious and different! With restraint, I made it last five days stored in the pan with a plate on top.
*You can obviously use other pans, possibly with slightly different baking times. Test for doneness ahead of time, particularly for smaller cakes. Kim originally wrote the recipe for a 9.5" fluted tart pan, which may lend itself better to serving warm out of the pan. Heidi used a long, odd-sized loaf pan. For Christmas, I made several batches using either two 6" cake pans, or the set of four mini 5" loaf pans (which needed only 35 min baking time) my mom found me at a garage sale. Wrapped in plastic cling wrap with a branch of rosemary on top (or twisted in a wreath) they made very pretty Christmas gifts.