Sunday 10 April 2011

Chocolate Ripple Pound Cake - made with olive oil

This is a beautiful cake when served - I don't think I could have made the ripples this way by planning! It was also far too big for my bundt tin; when I make it again I'm going to reduce it by 20% - use 4 eggs instead of 5 and reduce everything else accordingly.The flavours are also very subtle and need a bit more oomph - it needs more orange zest  in the plain cake and more black pepper (or maybe chilli instead) in the chocolate ripples - but the texture is very good, one of the best I've achieved with a cake made with oil.

Amazingly, I was about 20 pages into a Google search before I came across this recipe by Alice Medrich, which was developed for an Olive Oil producer in California. There are other recipes on the site which seem worth exploring too.

My cake didn't look much like the one in the photo accompanying the recipe, but it certainly made up for it's deceptively plain look when cut! Because the chocolate flavoured batter was thicker and denser than the plain batter, it didn't spread out evenly on top of the plain batter when poured into the bundt pan. Instead it sank into the previous layers without getting anywhere near the sides of the pan. I was a bit worried by this at the time, but it was too late to do anything about it - next time I may make the cocoa mix a little thinner.

However, as I've said, the end result were these amazing ripples through the cake! I relieved the plainess of the outside of the cake, and covered a few patches where the tin was over-floured, with an orange flavoured glacé icing, but I think a dusting of icing sugar would have been  just as good.

With a few tweaks to the size and the flavour, this will be a really good cake. I will certainly be using the recipe again, and perhaps experimenting with different flavours. 

I used a very mild olive oil, for reasons of economy, but it might be worth making the cake with a more strongly flavoured EVOO, to see if the stronger flavour of a better oil has much impact on the cake.

9 comments:

The Caked Crusader said...

You've got some great swirls going on there!

celia said...

All hail the Queen of Marbling! Suelle you've done it again, that swirl looks amazing! I'm fascinated by the idea that the cake has black pepper in it!

Caroline said...

Wow, those are some amazing swirls! It looks like a really good textured cake too - did the CT enjoy it?

Suelle said...

Celia, I didn't really notice the pepper at all. If it was supposed to add heat, then more of it was needed.

C, for such a large cake, it's disappearing very fast. I think we are all enjoying this cake a lot.

Alicia Foodycat said...

There is NO WAY I would get my ripples that perfect! It is amazing!

Maria♥ said...

Wow, your cake looks amazing and those ripples couldn't be more perfect!

Maria
x

Joanna @ Zeb Bakes said...

What a beauty! I wonder if that recipe is in the AM book I have. It's one of those books with sticks of butters and thirds of cups, maybe you would like it? Shall I put it in the post to you? I don't think I will ever bake from it but you might be up to the challenge. Let me know if you would like it. x Joanna

Suelle said...

What a kind thought, Joanna, but if the CT has to stay on a low saturated fat diet, then I won't be baking with butter any time soon! I'm still quite wary of cup recipes and usually translate them to grams or ounces.

Unknown said...

That is beautiful!