This cake would probably fall in “one of my favorite cakes” category.  The very first time I made it I was a bit skeptical.  12 ounces of olive oil.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Who was the proofreader for this recipe?!?  

Skepticism aside, I was on the hunt for menus to utilize for a kid’s camp titled Around The World and this fit the bill.   I am soooo happy that I made this and I think you will be too.  This is a not too sweet cake (although there is a lot of sugar involved here)  but still satisfies.  It is also very moist and dense but still has a good crumb.  It keeps beautifully.  It travels well.  It goes in the all around winner pile.    

OLIVE OIL CAKE

3 large eggs, beaten

2 cups sugar

12 ounces extra virgin olive oil

1 1/4 cups milk

1/4 cup orange liquer  (if you don’t want to use or don’t have on hand just up the orange juice to 1/2 cup)

1/4 cup orange juice

3 tsp lemon zest

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp. blanched almonds,  finely chopped

powdered sugar for garnish 

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter a 10 inch cake pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, olive oil, milk, liquer, orange juice and lemon zest. 

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.  Whisk until well blended.  Fold in the almonds.

Pour the mixture into the buttered cake pan.  Bake for 60 minutes.  (You can’t necessarily insert a toothpick into the center because of the moistness of this cake.  Touch the center to see if it is firm.)  Place on a rack to cool.  Run a knife around the edges and invert onto a serving platter.  Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

We conducted an olive oil tasting at Foodies last week.  It was the first in a series we have scheduled as many students ask about specific ingredients and how to determine which ones they should use. 

We blind tested eight different olive oils ranging in price from .10 an ounce to 2.00 an ounce.   The task was to look for indicators such as floralness, herbaceousness, spiciness, greenness, nuttiness, bitterness and pungency.  To this end, we employed the 4 S’s: swirl, smell, slurp and swallow.  

A tasting sheet was provided for everyone to note the nuances they smelled and tasted in the oils.  They were then asked to rank them from favorite to least favorite.  It was a struggle for most to discern any notes or particular flavor components from the oils.   One commented that it was like tasting WD30 and the majority emphatically pronounced that they never wanted to taste olive oil again.   

The most surprising part of the test was that only one picked the most expensive oil as their favorite and one picked it as their second choice.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, only one of nine picked the ringer I tossed in (pomace oil as opposed to extra virgin) as their least favorite. 

We then made three margherita pizzas and three grilled romaine and cantaloupe salads utilizing the top three vote getters from the testing. Each participant had a serving of each on three plates showcasing the oils.  For the majority of the testers, this is where they could tell notable differences between the oils, especially in the salad dressing.  There were definite winners after oils were utilized in conjunction with other ingredients.  

The bottom line, at least for this group, is choose an oil you like.  Don’t rely on the notion of greenness, floralness or, especially price.  In some cases, at least with our testers, the most expensive wasn’t necessarily the preferred.  Experiment a bit and choose something that pleases your palette.  Try the oil you choose in applications where the oil isn’t heated like a salad dressing.  Use that same oil in a cake and see if you can tell a difference.  As with most ingredients, the properties changed when heat is applied. 

I made an olive oil cake to complete the meal utilizing an extra virgin olive oil which costs about .20 per ounce.  As the cake contained 12 ounces of oil, utilizing the 2.00 per ounce olive oil would make this an extraordinary cake:  not necessarily in terms of flavor but in terms of cost.  And the cake we ate was devoured by all.  It is very moist yet full of crumb.  Not too sweet but just enough sweetness to satisfy.   Recipe tomorrow so stay tuned.

We tasted these oils in our blind taste test:

Alessi                              Italy                                 .62 an ounce

Mediterraneo              Tuscany                           2.00 an ounce

Vita                                  Italy                                 .20 an ounce

Mediterraneo              Greece                              2.00 an ounce

Cento                              Italy                                  .49 an ounce

Olivera  (pomace)     Turkey                              .10 an ounce

Coluccio                        Italy                                  .59 an ounce

Columela                      Spain                                  .62 an ounce

We cooked with the Alessi, Coluccio and Columela.  Columela was the overall “winner” when tasted on the salad and pizza against the Alessi and Coluccio.   

We finished up Julie/Julia with a bang …. or a whimper if you count the sound the student made when she put the lobster in the pot for our dinner of Cheese Souffle, Lobster Thermidor and Floating Islands.

We had several students who “killed their first lobster”. Of course, the question invariably arises about the pain lobsters feel as they are being dropped into the pot of boiling water. I did some research and while the debate will probably rage for years to come, the majority of evidence suggests that lobsters simply aren’t intelligent enough nor developed enough to feel pain. Pain is a neurological event while suffering is an emotional event. Your emotional makeup indicates the degree to which you feel the suffering when you stick your foot into a too warm bath. Others might laugh and call you a sissy at the same temperature. Julia Child could stick her hand into a pot of boiling water to grab a piece of pasta. Not me!! My tolerance to suffering is not that high.

Lobsters have a very very tiny brain scientifically proven to be smaller than the size of a grasshopper. They also do not have a central nervous system. These two non-components in their physiological makeup make them less likely to experience pain or to recognize suffering.

What about the hiss or “scream” which lobsters make? The occasional leg thrash? This is simply steam or water being introduced between the shell and the lobster meat. Lobsters have no vocal cords and therefore cannot scream. While this certainly won’t end the questions there are some steps you can take to ensure that you limit any potential pain or suffering this creature might make as you prepare him for dinner.

1. Make sure the water is boiling hot.

2. Do not add more lobsters than can be adequately covered by the water without bringing down the temperature (I recommend cooking them one or two at a time until you have finished them all. Simply remove the cooked lobsters from the pot and hold them while you boil the remainder.)

3. Put the lobster in head first and hold it in the water with tongs.

4. Do not take the rubber bands off of the claws to avoid the lobster grabbing onto the side of the pot, the tongs, etc.