Mandarin Olive Oil Cake

This cake is the third in my series of olive oil cakes, and it's a ripper.  I had some mandarin-pressed oil lurking in my pantry so this was a fab way to use it.  I'm an olive oil obsessive as regular readers will know already.  I have lemon-pressed, and lime-pressed and mandarin-pressed; oh yes and now I have yuzu-pressed, plus all sorts of EVOO from various farms and groves.  

A few years ago we were holidaying down in South Australia, and headed to wine country to check out the wineries and olive groves.  So off we trotted to a farm in the Barossa Valley (or Clare Valley says Mr P.).  We found the farm, and drove up the long, gravel driveway to the homestead.  We saw the farmer's wife (I presume) on the front verandah, who upon seeing us, ran off into the paddocks never to be seen again!  So we headed back to our cottage, which was this smoke-ridden, tiny stone building stuck out in a field in the middle of nowhere.  Fun times, my friends :-)  Anyway, let's enjoy cake ... 

tangy and citrus-y

(Recipe from Taste.com.au by Katrina Woodman, with a few tweaks)

Serves 8:

ingredients:

155g. (3/4 cup) caster sugar

4 large eggs, separated

3 mandarins, zested

125 mL (1/2 cup) extra virgin olive oil (I used mandarin-pressed)

60 mL (1/4 cup) fresh mandarin juice

115g. (3/4 cup) plain flour

85g. (3/4 cup) almond meal

icing sugar, to serve

Method:

Turn the oven to 180C/360F to heat up

Grab a 22cm/9 in springform pan, grease base and sides, and line with baking paper

Reserve 2 tbs of the caster sugar!  And beat the egg yolks, mandarin zest and the rest of the sugar (in a large bowl) with electric beaters until thick and doubled and leaves a ribbon trail when you lift the beaters

Whisk the oil and juice in a jug

Combine the flour and almond meal in a small bowl

Add the olive oil mixture to the egg yolk mixture in a slow stream, alternating with the flour mixture in batches, till everything is just combined

Make sure your beaters are super clean! and beat the egg whites and the 2 tbs reserved sugar till you have firm peaks

Then fold in half the egg whites into the flour mixture (with a big metal spoon) till just combined

Gently fold in the rest of the egg whites, and then pour the batter into your prepared pan

Bake for 35-40 minutes till a skewer comes out clean, and let rest for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely

Dust with icing sugar when serving, and add a dollop of mascarpone!

Notes:

Being the lazy gal I am, I peeled the mandarins and chucked the rind into a food processor rather than zest by hand - who has time for that? :-)

And I used bought mandarin juice!  Yep crazy since I had fresh fruit there, but it's darn difficult to juice mandarins and I already had the 100% juice in the fridge, so I ate the fruits - tee hee

beat the egg yolks, zest and sugar together

whisk the oil and juice together

all ready to combine into a tangy batter

beat the egg whites and sugar till thick, and firm peaks abound

fold in the egg whites

into the oven at 180C for 35-40 mins.

golden and gorgeous

cool it right down, baby

see, I've sliced into it already ...

© Sherry M.

(Joining in with Marg from Intrepid Reader blog for Weekend Cooking)