chocolate olive oil cake

chocolate olive oil cake

• 27 Apr 2020

With the restrictions imposed by Covid -19, like most other people I've been filling in my spare time with baking. Sometimes I feel like making something elaborate involving many steps and sometimes I don't. I'd planned to make something elaborate last weekend but I wasn't in the mood, so looked around for something else to make.




On my fridge I had an envelope on which I'd written a chocolate olive oil cake recipe which I'd adapted from a Julia Busuttil Nishimura recipe I found online. I looked through the cupboards and I had everything I needed to make the cake.



Sometimes it's an easy fix to halve a recipe to make a 17cm cake. Sometimes when the halved recipe asks for 1½ eggs, I use 2 eggs instead but I then need to adjust all the liquids a little to avoid making a sloppy mess. I made a little too much coffee so instead of using it in the cake, I decided to use it in the chocolate topping. I always have chocolate shards in the fridge, so I crumbled up a few and used them to decorate the top of the cake.




Here’s the recipe for you, inspired by Julia's. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. I have a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20ºC.



Chocolate Olive Oil Cake – makes a small bundt cake or a 17cm cake. If you'd like to make a larger cake then check Julia's  original recipe. If you'd like to top the cake with the chocolate coffee ganache, I'd make double the recipe.

Cake
125g self-raising flour
40g unsweetened cocoa
125g caster sugar
25g brown sugar
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
50ml olive oil
⅓ cup buttermilk
¼ cup warm coffee or water
1 tsp vanilla bean extract or vanilla essence

Chocolate coffee ganache
75g dark chocolate (at least 60%), chopped
50 mls hot coffee
Chocolate flakes to top, optional

Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and dust a small bundt tin with cocoa powder then place in the fridge until needed. Otherwise grease and line the base and sides of a 17cm round tin with baking paper.

In a large bowl, sift the flour and cocoa, then add the sugars and sea salt. Mix to combine. In another bowl, whisk together the olive oil, eggs, buttermilk, coffee and vanilla until smooth.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Pour into the prepared tin and bake for around 40-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when tested. Another way to test for doneness is by lightly pressing the top of the centre of the cake. It should be soft but spring back when pressed. Allow to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then invert onto a cooling rack to cool completely.



Chocolate coffee ganache
Place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Add the hot coffee and allow to sit for a few minutes for the chocolate to melt. If the chocolate doesn’t completely melt, then heat the bowl in the microwave for 20 – 30 seconds. Once the chocolate has melted, stir vigorously until the mixture becomes thick and glossy. Allow the ganache to cool for a few minutes before pouring over the cooled cake. Top the cake with the chocolate flakes, if using, before placing on a serving dish.



I hope you like the recipe. See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian