Apr 20

Apr 20 DIY Lemon Zest Olive Oil Cake

Hi friends!

The countdown to my bday is here and I couldn’t be more excited to finally celebrate with all my friends again. This year, I’ll be hosting a DIY Pasta Making party. After getting my hands on a pasta maker and attempting to make my own pasta dough for the first time, I wanted to share the fun experience with some of my favorite people.

For the party, I plan on making a variety of homemade sauces and Italian dishes. I’m definitely no Italian cuisine expert, but I do think my focaccia bread is pretty damn good. To start things off, I decided to try making Olive Oil Cake for the first time. I’ve been seeing it everywhere on Instagram for some reason, so I decided to look up where all the rage has been coming from. Turns out, the Kardashians are very much behind the Olive Oil Cake craze and honestly I’m not surprised. Though it’s probably been around forever, all it takes is the stamp of approval from a single K for the cake itself to go viral.

Anyways, back to the baking. Originally, I was looking for a dessert to bake for my family for Easter when I stumbled upon a simple recipe by Half Baked Harvest for Strawberry Chamomile Olive Oil Cake with Honeyed Ricotta. I didn’t have all the ingredients listed on hand so I just made do with what I had at the time. Here’s my baking process:

Step 1: Combining the wet ingredients.

First, I started off with beating my eggs, sugar, and lemon zest until fluffy. Once the mixture was pale and light, I combined in my olive oil, milk, lemon juice, and vanilla.

Step 2: Mixing in the dry ingredients

Second, I slowly mixed in the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Step 3: Prepping the pans

Since I was a bit concerned about my cake overflowing I decided to divide the batter into two cake tins. I prepped the tins with olive oil and parchment paper to keep the cakes from sticking.

Step 4: Baking

Even though my cakes were split into two parts, they still took the full 45 minutes to bake in the oven.

Step 5: Cooling and Decorating

As my cake cooled, I cut fresh lemon slices and strawberries to decorate my cake. I didn’t have chamomile on hand to make the Chamomile Strawberries, so I just improvised with honey and sliced fruits. Lastly, I topped off my olive oil cake with fresh whipped cream instead of honeyed ricotta. Pro tip: Completely wait for your cake to cool before topping with whipped cream. I was too impatient to finish my cake and the whipped cream quickly started melting off of my cake.

There you have it. My first attempt at the coveted Olive Oil Cake. I can see why it’s such a popular summer dessert. The light citrus taste of the lemon combined with the moistness of the cake makes this the perfect dessert to take a bite of anytime of day.

For the full recipe and instructions, see Half Baked Harvest.

As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read my latest blog post. I’m so excited to share with you what I’ve been working on for my birthday party and I’ll be sure to share more soon!

Kiana