Festive Chocolate & Olive Oil Cake

Festive Chocolate & Olive Oil Cake

The family and I are off down our dusty dirt road to the Neighours’ place for a Christmas Party tomorrow evening. I’m taking something sweet, so decided on this Festive Chocolate & Olive Oil Cake – made festive with an icing sugar star on top, which looks great against the dark brown of the cake!  This gluten free cake is actually great all year round – just dust the whole top of the cake with icing sugar.

It’s great to be able to share a sweet recipe with you – incorporating our olive oil. When I first baked a cake with olive oil, I wasn’t sure how it would go, because our oil has a bit of bite to it.  I’m pleased to say however, that it works beautifully and offers a more complex and interesting flavour than a usual butter style cake. Sometimes I find a chocolate cake or brownies a little too sweet, but the olive oil balances this.

At this time if year it’s a delicious desert, but it can also be a great afternoon tea with guests. Serve with cream and/or icecream. Strawberries on the side are a great addition too.

I hope you can enjoy this lovely cake with family and friends over the holidays.

Ingredients

  • 50 grams quality cocoa powder (sifted)
  • 125 mls boiling water
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 110g ground almonds
  • 40g sorghum flour (or another gluten free flour)
  • ½ teaspoon bicarb of soda
  • 1 pinch of sea salt
  • 150mls olive oil
  • 200g caster sugar
  • 3 large eggs

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 160c.

Take a springform tin (22cm) and grease with olive oil. Line the base and sides with non-stick baking paper.

Sift cocoa powder into a bowl and stir in boiling water until you have a thin paste. Add the vanilla extract and stir to combine.

Take another bowl and add the ground almonds, sorghum flour (or another gluten free flour), bicarb soda and salt.

Take a bowl of an electric mixer and place the eggs, olive oil and sugar to it. Beat on high speed until well aerated – around 3-4 minutes.

Reduce the speed and add the cocoa mixture; beat until combined. Add the ground almonds and flour. Again, beat until combined.

Don’t worry that the batter is quite runny – this is how the mixture is. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin. Bake for around 40 minutes (or less in a fan forced oven – cakes in my fan forced oven always need less time).

Bake until the cake is coming away from the sides and the centre is set.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Remove the sides of the springform tin and any remaining baking paper.

Dust with icing sugar, serve and enjoy.

 

We now have our olive oil available as an addition to our beef hampers.   Simply select it when you order your next hamper.

Happy Festive Baking, Kirrily.

 

(I have adapted this recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Olive Oil Cake)