Olive Oil Cake

 

Peter surprised me with a cake and it wasn't even my birthday! He brought it to me on Christmas Eve.

This wasn't just any cake. It was the Del Mar Restaurant (Naples, FL) Olive Oil Cake that Don and I fell in love with twice.

The first time we fell in love with it was in May when we went to Del Mar. We had never seen Olive Oil Cake on a dessert menu so we ordered it. Amazing! The second time we went to Del Mar we had forgotten that we had ever been there until the dessert menu came out and we saw the Olive Oil Cake again. That was in December.

This cake was so good I jokingly asked the waiter if I could have the recipe. Restaurants don't usually give out their recipes, so I was surprised that he said sure! They emailed it to me the next day. I was in heaven until I read the recipe and found out it was scaled to six cakes. It called for 24 eggs and almost 11 cups of olive oil, 6.75 lb. of sugar, and 6 lb. of all-purpose flour. Other measurements weren't so clear-cut for dividing.

I couldn't think of anything else to do except send the recipe to Peter to scale it back to one cake.

Six weeks went by and I didn't get my recipe back from Peter. I figured he forgot about it and I didn't want to bother him. Then on Christmas Eve, he came in with a cake on a platter - the Olive Oil Cake decorated with homemade candied orange peel!

We all enjoyed a piece of the cake, and although it didn't taste exactly like Del Mar's version, it was still an amazing delicacy.

Here's the recipe:

Del Mar Olive Oil Cake

2 1/2 cups granulated sugar (510 grams)

1 3/4 cups Good Quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil

4 eggs

1/2 egg yolk

1 3/4 cups buttermilk

4 tsp. orange zest

1/3 cup orange juice

1/3 cup Triple Sec liquor

3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (454 grams)

2 1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. baking powder

1 1/4 tsp. baking soda

Instructions:

1. Whisk sugar, olive oil, eggs, and egg yolk in a mixer until well combined.

2. In a separate bowl, add buttermilk, zest, OJ, and Triple Sec (set aside).

3. Combine dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda).

4. Alternating between dry and wet mixtures, add 1/3 of each to the bowl from step 1, and mix until everything is combined.

5. Pour into a 10-inch springform pan (lined with parchment paper and sprayed with non-stick spray).

6. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes, then cover the springform pan with parchment paper and a baking sheet and bake for an additional 20 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 325F and bake for an additional 50 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

7. Let cool at room temperature, then wrap and refrigerate.