My boys were away this afternoon and I woke up from an afternoon nap with a craving for cake and tea, faintly recalling a reference to olive oil cake made at dinner the previous night.  Which had brought to mind fruity olive oil, clementines, lemon zest, and of course a lazy Mediterranean vacation.

This cake came together quickly, but I took many liberties, following this recipe, but with Meyer lemon zest and juice instead of orange and in twice the amount the recipe called for.  I used turbinado sugar instead of white, didn’t sift anything and beat all the wet ingredients at once together and baked in my toaster oven, which one really shouldn’t do.  I ended up with a very lemony cake that was still quite good — especially warm and crumbly from the oven and sending off heady citrus aromas.  It was easy to eat big mouthfuls.

Note: I’ve adjusted the amount of lemon juice and zest used and have left salt out of the cake (although you can add a pinch).  Next time I plan to add a little more olive oil to the cake although it’s perfectly good with less.

Meyer lemon olive oil cake

Dry ingredients, mix well and keep aside

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder, aluminium-free

1/2 tsp baking soda

Wet ingredients

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature

1/3 1/2 cup olive oil (using a dry measuring cup)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Juice and zest of 2-3 Meyer lemons

1. Heat the oven to 350F and prepare a regular size loaf pan or 4 mini loaf pans by smearing a little butter all over and dusting with flour.  Shake out excess flour.

2. Beat sugar and eggs with a hand-held electric beater on high for 2-3 minutes.  Drizzle in olive oil, followed by the lemon juice and vanilla extract.  Turn off the beater and mix in the zest with a spatula.

3. Gently add in the dry ingredient mixture (flour, baking soda and baking powder) and pour into the loaf pan.  Bake in the pre-heated oven until a tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from oven, allow to cool for several minutes and tap out of pan.

4.  Serve warm with ice cream, whipped heavy cream, mascarpone or as is.