I love citrus flavoured cakes. I love how grated peels bring freshness and aroma while baking in the oven. Often times, citrus makes cakes a little less rich than they actually are. I have baked a number of citrus based cakes in past (see here and here) and they all turned to be wonderful morning tea cakes and/or afternoon pick-me-up. In addition to adding citrus in my cakes, I have grown fond of substituting butter with cooking oil. Don’t get me wrong, I still love butter. However as a spontaneous baker, the process of softening or melting butter can feel like a chore sometimes. You probably realize that I don’t have many baking recipes that require softened butter on this blog. I’m afraid to say that I’m not a purist when it comes to baking.
I came across this wonderful recipe from Gourmet Traveller on Lemon and Olive Oil loaf cake. The ingredient list is simple and it is something I can whip up whenever I feel like a break from my week days routine. Yesterday, I felt the need to bake for relaxation. It was a nice end to a hectic day with a fragrant and moist loaf cake.
Lemon, Poppy Seed & Olive Oil Loaf Cake
Recipe tweaked slightly from Gourmet Traveller
(Fits a standard sized loaf tin)
What you’ll need:-
- 200g (7 ounces) caster (fine) sugar
- 3 eggs
- 250 ml (1 cup) milk
- 250 ml (1 cup) extra-virgin olive oil
- Juice and finely grated rind of 2 lemons (about 300g)
- 300 gm (2 cups) plain flour, sieved ** I did not sieved mine
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp poppy seeds *optional*
- Icing sugar for dusting *which I have omitted*
plus a handheld electric mixer
Method:-
Preheat oven to 180C/356F. Using a handheld electric mixer, whisk sugar, eggs and a pinch of salt until thick and pale (3-4 minutes). Set aside. In a large jug, combine milk, oil, lemon juice and rind and whisk to combine (Note – Don’t be alarmed that the milk appears to be curdled after adding the lemon juice. It happens when you mix milk and lemon juice together and it does not affect the texture of the cake). Gradually add milk-oil mixture to egg mixture, whisking until just combined. Using a spatula, fold through flour and baking powder. It’s okay if there are small lumps in the batter. Transfer the batter to a baking paper lined loaf tin (make sure you grease the uncovered surface with some olive oil) and bake until golden and cooked through for 55 minutes to an hour. Cool in tins (5 minutes), then transfer to a flat plate. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm or at room temperature. It is best eaten on day of making.
Just love the idea of baking for relaxation. Thanks for sharing. I hate creaming butter and sugar too.
Hi Emily:
This looks delicious, and I’d love to make it soon. Do you know what temperature (Farhenheit) I should use when baking this in a glass loaf pan? I lower the temperature by 25 degrees F when baking with glass pans, but I’m not sure if I convert the 180 C to F then decrease the temperature by 25 F, or if I decrease the 180 C by 25 (F?) and then convert to F.
Kind regards,
Karen
Hi Karen,
If I were you, I would convert from 180C to Fahrenheit which is 356F and then lower by 25F when baking with glass pans. I hope this helps and happy baking! xx Emily
Thank you! I’ll give it a try, hopefully in the next few days, and I’ll let you know. If I can’t bake in the next few days, I’ll be sure to let you know the results whenever I do bake this.
Karen
Hi Emily,
Just made this loaf, on the outside looks good bake and smells great but the amount of oil seems to be too much. I used less than the recommended 250ml (206ml to be precise!) and inside it’s still come out very oily, sadly.
Have you had this problem? I’m guessing not as you’ve recommended using 250ml 😛
Cheers,
James
Hi James,
I’m sorry to hear that it didn’t turn out well for you. I tried to go through the recipe and compared with the original recipe and the only change I’ve made was to reduce the sugar from 300g to 200g. No, I don’t have this problem and I could not think of a reason that may have caused this. 🙁
Some absolutely stunning photos and the cake looks fantastic. I am going to try this soon 🙂
you said the juice and finely grated rind of 2 lemons (about 300g)
well 300g is equivalent to 10.5 oz correct?
This is such an odd little recipe that I felt I had to try it– and it’s very good! We all love lemon drizzle cake but I’m not thrilled about using all that butter, so I was drawn to use of olive oil here. It works really well, though you probably need to use reasonably good olive oil (there’s a lot of rubbish out there, and maybe that’s what gave someone else’s cake an oily taste) and oil the pan only lightly. I used limes instead of lemons (didn’t have any good lemons) and that was good too. I’d use more poppy seeds, but that’s just a preference. The taste is not as rich as a traditional lemon drizzle, but sometimes that’s just fine.
A few suggestions: the quantity of batter seems rather too much for a normal 9″ loaf pan. I baked some separately as 4 large muffins. For the loaf, I made a syrup of icing sugar and lime juice to pour over the top while it was cooling– somewhat defeats the purpose of trying to make this healthy, but I felt it needed something to make it a bit richer (muffins were fine as is). It’s a bit odd that you give alternative measurements (grams and ounces) for everything except the flour, but I managed. And finally, I know this is an odd concept for Americans, but the cake was actually better after a day or two! Just keep it wrapped or, in traditional style, pop it in a cake tin.
Thanks for this recipe!