Olive oil & lemon cake.
The kind of cake to keep on the counter under a tea-towel. Crumb the colour of a Ligurian afternoon, top crackling with sugar, and the perfume of olive oil running through every bite. Improves on day two.
ingredients.
- 200 g plain flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp fine salt
- 200 g caster sugar
- 2 lemons zest only
- 3 eggs room temperature
- 180 ml fruity olive oil
- 120 ml whole milk
- 1 lemon juice only
- 80 g icing sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice up to 2 tbsp, to loosen the glaze
method.
- 01
Heat the oven to 170°C fan and line a 22 cm round tin with paper.
- 02
Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in one bowl. In another, beat the eggs and caster sugar for 3 minutes until pale and ribbon-thick.
- 03
Stream in the olive oil while the whisk keeps moving, then the milk, then the lemon zest and juice. Fold the dry ingredients in three additions — stop the moment no flour streaks remain.
- 04
Pour into the tin, scatter the demerara across the top, and bake 38–42 minutes. A skewer should come out clean with a few damp crumbs.
- 05
Cool in the tin for 20 minutes before turning out. Tea-towel; counter; patience.