Olive Oil Cake with Blackberry Glaze
Olive Oil Cake with Blackberry Glaze
Putting a spring twist on one of my favorite cakes! The syrupy blackberry glaze was the perfect compliment to the tart lemon and rich olive oil base.
Ingredients
- 1 cup cake flour
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 TBSP Meyer lemon juice
- Zest of Meyer lemon
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 cup milk
- Glaze:
- 6 oz blackberries
- 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar
- 1-2 TBSP water
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
- Step 1 Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a bundt pan with cooking spray. You can also use a round cake pan.
- Step 2 In a large bowl, sift together the two flours, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
- Step 3 In another bowl, add your eggs with the sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and whip the mixture for about 4 minutes, until it is pale and airy.
- Step 4 Make a well in the dry ingredients and add in the egg mixture and whisk. Add the milk and olive oil next. Whisk until everything is combined.
- Step 5 Pour the batter into the pan and give it a light tapping to even it out and get out any air bubbles. Place it in the oven and bake for 45 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Step 6 Let the cake cool in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a small knife around edge of cake, then turn the cake out onto rack to let cool completely.
- Step 7 To make the glaze: Blend the blackberries in a food processor, then strain the liquid through a mesh sieve to remove all of the seeds. I found using a spoon to push down the glaze into the sieve helped get all the liquid through (see photo below). Whisk the blackberry juice with confectioners’ sugar, water and vanilla in a small bowl until smooth.
- Step 8 Set cake and rack over tin foil. Drizzle glaze on cooled cake, allowing it to drip over edges. Let the glaze set for at least 20 minutes before serving.
- Step 9 You can serve the cake warm or allow it to cool and serve later. I also topped mine with powdered sugar.
If you’ve been following our blog closely, this recipe will look strikingly similar to one of our favorites from the archives: our Meyer Lemon Olive Oil Cake! I first posted the recipe back in January and have been meaning to make it again ever since. When we were invited to dinner this past Friday and I offered to bring dessert, I decided to finally revisit this recipe, but couldn’t help myself from adding a new “spring” twist: adding blackberries to the glaze.
My original motivation for this was the fact that we had an extra carton of blackberries in our fridge that I really didn’t want to go to waste, but as I thought more about it, I realized it was a pretty perfect pairing. I don’t know what it is about lemons and blackberries together, but they are just magic! Especially when contrasted against the richness of the olive oil cake, I knew the flavors would just pop! It’s not even blackberry peak season yet (typically it starts in July) but they’ve been popping up on sale at all the local grocery stores for the last few weeks and they’re as plump and juicy as ever!
This recipe can easily be modified to include other berries or fruits; as long as you puree and strain your fruit du jour down to liquid, you’re halfway there; adding the confectioners sugar will then help the glaze thicken up. When I first tried to strain my blackberry puree it was so thick nothing was dripping down into the bowl. But once I used a spoon to push it down into the sieve, the juice start dribbling through.
I was thrilled with the final result and so happy to share this with our friends and their family. If you’ve ever cooked for kids, you’ll know that they can sometimes be your harshest critics, but thankfully their two daughters were BIG fans of the cake too… phew!! Apparently it tastes like banana bread and that is a very good thing :).
