20th
Olive Oil Cake (aka Cake You Can Eat For Breakfast)
I’ve said this before, but I am not a baker. Although baking is all about measurement and precision, things that should come naturally to someone who went to engineering school, I really struggle with baked goods. With cooking, you can always tweak things as you go along to salvage the dish. If your cookies didn’t rise because you forgot the salt, it’s too late to fix the problem. If you’ve guesstimated the quantities of ingredients or used unconventional substitutions, I hope luck is on your side.
When it comes to baking, I really believe that practice makes perfect. Here are some tips that I’ve been following: Practice reading the recipe very carefully and following the steps. Double check yourself, especially before you put anything into the oven. Take your time, and have some faith.
Always looking for another use of my EVOO, I’ve been eyeing Saveur’s olive oil cake recipe. The olive oil cake sounded more like a bread than a cake, so let’s call it a cake that you can eat for breakfast. I thought about substituting the Grand Marnier with either triple sec or amaretto, but I found a small 200 ml bottle at the liquor store. There was an even smaller 50 ml bottle, but I sized up in case I wanted to make crêpes suzette (unlikely), a soufflé (maybe), or cocktails (bingo).
Before the endothermic reaction…
And after. I found that the cake was really dense (a little dry, actually… I may have overbaked) and not too sweet. It definitely requires some washing down with milk, which is perfect for breakfast.
