Olive Oil Cake with Lemon Zest
One of the big complaints at my house with using gluten-free flour is that cakes taste gritty. Well, not this one.
Based on the NYT’s Olive Oil Cake recipe by Samantha Seneviratne, this lemon-scented cake truly is an elegant treat - and mostly due to the way the ingredients are combined. Beating the sugar, room temperature eggs, and lemon zest together along with the fruity flavor of olive oil creates a whippy consistency in which the GF flour just disappears. My kids will never know they ate a GF cake!
Less Sugar
I used less sugar than Samantha did in the original recipe; in fact, I find that I can easily do ½ to ⅔ of the sugar in any recipe someone else writes. You should train your tastebuds to like less sweet things too. Next time I make this cake, I’m going to try 100 grams of sugar and see how it goes.
Weigh Your Ingredients When You Bake
And one more tip: weigh your dry ingredients. Spooning flour into a measuring cup led me to use several more tablespoons than I measured when using a scale. And extra flour = more calories = drier cake!
Prep Time 15 minutes
Bake Time 45 minutes
Makes one 9-inch cake
Ingredients
1 cup good-quality extra-virgin olive oil
2 cups / 255 grams all-purpose gluten-free flour, like Bob’s Red Mill
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup / 200 grams granulated sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon freshly grated lemon zest + 2 tablespoons lemon juice*
1 ¼ cups nut milk, like Elmhurst hazelnut milk at room temperature
*About the amount of zest from one whole lemon and ½ lemon juiced
Directions
Heat the oven to 375 F regular baking mode (not convection, otherwise the cake won’t rise). Grease a 9-ince round cake pan with a little of your olive oil and line the bottom and sides with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and soda.
In the bowl of an electric mixer on high, beat the sugar, eggs, and lemon zest until very thick and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer still running, slowly drizzle in the oil and beat until incorporated, another 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low, and then add milk and lemon juice. Gradually add the flour mixture and beat until just combined, stirring down the sides. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, smoothing the top if needed.
Bake the cake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes, then run a knife around the edge to separate the paper from the pan. Invert the cake onto a plate and then flip back over onto the rack to cool completely. Store leftovers under a cake cover at room temperature for about a week.
Enjoy!
