Orange and Almond Olive Oil Cake
A sunny olive oil sponge flecked with orange zest, topped with candied orange and flaked almonds, with warm orange syrup poured over.
- Total
- 1 hr 10 min
- Prep
- 25 min
- Bake
- 45 min
- Serves
- 10
- Level
- Easy
- Tin
- 20 cm springform
Olive oil cake is the one to make when there is no butter in the house, and it turns out to be better than the butter version at the job that matters most: still being good three days later.
Oil stays liquid at room temperature, so the crumb never firms up the way a butter cake does overnight. Ground almonds add fat of their own, and the orange zest keeps the whole thing from tasting merely rich.
The candied slices and the syrup come from the same pan, thirty minutes, one job.
Ingredients
For the cake
For the candied orange
To finish
You will need
- 20 cm springform tin
- Fine grater
- Wide saucepan
Method
Oven 170°C · fan 150°C · 340°F
Candy the orange slices
Simmer the sugar and water until clear, slide in the paper-thin orange slices and poach at the barest simmer for 30 minutes until translucent. Lift them out and keep the syrup: it is the pour for the finished cake.
Tip One job, two results. Do not throw that syrup away.
Heat the oven and line the tin
Heat the oven to 170°C / 150°C fan. Oil a 20 cm springform tin and line the base.
Rub the zest into the sugar
Grate the zest of all three oranges onto the sugar and rub it in with your fingertips until damp and fragrant.
Whisk in the wet ingredients
Whisk in the eggs one at a time, then pour in the olive oil in a slow stream, whisking, until the mixture is thick and glossy. No creaming and no mixer needed.
Fold in the dry ingredients
Fold in the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt, then the milk and the juice of one orange.
Bake for 45 minutes
Bake for 45–50 minutes until deep golden and a skewer comes out clean. The ground almonds brown quickly, so cover with foil at 30 minutes if needed.
Release and top
Cool 20 minutes in the tin, then unclip the ring. Lay the candied orange slices over the top and scatter the toasted flaked almonds around them.
Reduce the syrup and pour
Boil the reserved poaching syrup for 3–4 minutes until it thickens slightly, then pour it warm over each slice.
Baker's notes
- Use an olive oil you would happily eat on bread, but not a peppery one, because bitter, grassy oils fight the orange.
- Naturally dairy-free if you use almond milk, and it keeps better than any butter cake here.
Keeping it 5 days in a tin, and genuinely better on days two and three as the oil settles through the crumb. Freezes well.
Questions, answered
Will it taste of olive oil?
Faintly and pleasantly, like a fruity background note. If that worries you, use half olive oil and half sunflower.
Can I use a whole-orange boiled cake method instead?
That is a different cake: denser, wetter, more marmalade-like. Good, but not this one; it needs no flour and a much longer bake.
If it goes wrong
Three things account for most of what happens to a cake in a domestic oven. Each has its own guide.
- It sank in the middleSeven causes, told apart by the shape of the crater.
- It came out raw in the centreBrown outside, wet inside, and how to rescue the one you are holding.
- The caramel seizedIt is almost always fixable. The lump re-melts.
