When I first started really watching Food TV, one of my favorite chefs was Giada. I used to watch Food TV almost everyday, and I’d always try to be home in time to catch Everyday Italian (we didn’t have DVR at the time…did it even exist 8 or 9 years ago?). I tried many of her recipes back in the day, but one of the most memorable ones, that I never got to try, was her Olive Oil Cake. I wasn’t as familiar with baking back then, and the thought of olive oil going into a cake intrigued me. I really wanted to know how it would taste.
I’ve tried olive oil cakes a couple times since then, but I finally got around to baking my very own just this week.
Since the olive oil flavor seemed light, I decided to pair it with something else. Oranges popped into my mind. Citrus and olive oil are a popular combo, so this seemed like a great idea.
And it was.
The cake was great – with a slightly crisp outside (perfect for those edge-piece cake eaters) and moist inside.
I loved the lightly sweet and barely-there-orange flavors. Possibly best of all for this lazy baker – there’s no frosting required. Just dust your cake with some powdered sugar and you’re ready to dig in!
This cake turned out so much better than I thought…I almost ate hubby’s before he even knew it existed. And since I baked it while he was out playing basketball, I totally could have gotten away with this. Lucky for him, I saved his cake mini without even taking so much as a bite (though I was tempted). I totally could have hidden a small bite with enough powdered sugar.
Orange-Scented Olive Oil Cake Minis
These lightly sweetened, citrusy cake minis would be great after an evening of pasta or dinner al fresco with lots of grilled goodness. Try using a little orange olive oil for an extra orange kick. And I bet an orange-scented quick drizzle frosting would be pretty good, too! Just make this frosting recipe (click) with fresh-squeezed orange juice instead of water. Oh, and if you’re feeling really gourmet, I think these cake minis would be wonderful topped with candied orange zest (whether you purchase it or make it at home).
*Vegetarian, Vegan Options*
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Bake Time: 16-20 minutes
Total Time: 26-30 minutes
Ingredients:
- 3 teaspoons water
- 1 teaspoon ground flaxseed
- 6 tablespoons flour (I used unbleached all purpose)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch salt
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 tablespoons sucanat (or sub sugar for a sweeter flavor)
- 2 tablespoons milk (or vegan milk, like rice milk)
- 1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest
- powdered sugar, for garnish
- orange peel, optional, for garnish
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare 2 3-inch diameter ramekins with non-stick spray.
- In a small bowl, combine water and flaxseed. Stir and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, add flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk together (or stir with a fork).
- In another medium bowl, add flaxseed mixture, olive oil, sucanat, milk and orange zest. Whisk to evenly combine (or use a fork).
- Gently stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just combined (batter will be slightly lumpy).
- Evenly distribute to ramekins and bake for 16-20 minutes, until top is golden brown and tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Allow cake minis to cool. Run a knife along the outside edge of the cake mini to release it from the ramekin. Place each cake mini on a plate and dust with powdered sugar. Garnish with orange peel, if using.
- Enjoy!
Happy baking!
Reader question: What’s your favorite flavor to pair with olive oil?
Here’s a fun project to try this strawberry season…
Does this look familiar?
I mean, from the photo, we appear to have something I’ve blogged about before – Farm-Fresh Strawberry Shortcakes with Amaretto-Spiked Whipped Cream (click for recipe).
It looks like a rich shortcake with sugar-sweetened strawberries and fluffy, potentially-spiked, whipped cream, right?
As it turns out, looks can definitely be deceiving…
What we actually have here is a strawberry shortcake made-over for breakfast. I added one of my favorite breakfast ingredients – oats. I also used a whole grain flour (spelt), cut the sugar by not macerating the strawberries in sugar, and found a fabulous, breakfast-worthy substitute for the whipped cream – yogurt.
I’m not going to promise you that this is healthy, but it is more breakfast-friendly. Would a chocolate croissant have more butter and sugar? I don’t really know, and I don’t really care. But, anywho, you could probably use this version as another Not So Sweet dessert with even less sugar than the original. Just tell them it’s good for you because of the probiotics. Yeaaaaaa…
Breakfast Strawberry Shortcake for One
I took my dessert strawberry shortcake recipe and switched up the ingredients to make it more breakfast-friendly. I used a whole grain flour, added oats, skipped macerating the strawberries, and substituted yogurt for the whipped cream. You could probably make this even healthier by substituting a good oil (maybe coconut?) for the butter (and please report back if you do). Oh, and I took almost all of the sugar out of this baby, so if you like your breakfast sweeter, by all means, add your preferred sweetener, to taste.
*Vegetarian, Vegan Options Listed*
Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup spelt flour (or flour of choice)
- 2 tablespoons oats
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon butter, cold (or sub vegan substitute, like Earth Balance)
- 3 tablespoons milk (or vegan non-dairy milk)
- 3-4 strawberries, tops removed, sliced
- 1 small container vanilla, Greek yogurt (or yogurt of choice or vegan yogurt, like a coconut-milk-based option) – or sub plain yogurt and add sweetener of choice, to taste
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F. Prepare a small baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl. Whisk (or use a fork) to evenly combine.
- Use a pastry cutter or fork to cut butter into the dry ingredients until the butter is in small bits (about the size of rice grains or pop rocks…yea, I said pop rocks).
- Gently stir in the milk/non-dairy milk until just combined (careful to not over-mix, but do ensure all flour combined into dough).
- Form dough into a ball-shape and place on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes, until golden brown on top and cooked through (if a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean).
- Allow to cool to room temperature. Cut shortcake in half. Top bottom half of shortcake with strawberries. Stir yogurt to desired texture and spoon as much as you’d like (I used about half the container) over the strawberries. Top yogurt with top half of shortcake and enjoy.
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Dessert for breakfast? You betcha.
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Reader question: What’s the sweetest thing you ever ate for breakfast?
One of my favorite things about having this blog is when people make my recipes. Sometimes people leave me comments telling me about their experience, including who they made the recipe for and why (like this one yesterday). Sometimes I see people make notes about my recipe on Pinterest. And sometimes, my family makes one of my recipes and then serves the finished product to me. But, no matter who you are or why you decided to try out a TCL recipe, know this – I really think that’s one of the coolest things ever. It’s always an honor to me when anyone takes the time to try out one of my recipes.
I know this may seem weird since I post recipes all the time, but I don’t ever really expect people to make any of the recipes I post. I hope for them to, but unless I see a comment about it, I just assume no one did. But here’s the thing, if I can share a recipe and even one person finds some sort of happiness or any ounce of helpfulness from it, I consider that a win. In fact, reading comments with success stories about my recipes makes me so happy. It’s like blog fuel – it keeps me going.
My sister actually did something cool recently – she adapted one of my recipes into something new. It actually happened somewhat by accident. She said she was trying to make my Green Monster Muffins, when she went to get the spinach out of the refrigerator and discovered that there was none. Doh! Apparently, my parents almost always have spinach in the house, so she assumed it would be there. When she realized it wasn’t there, she found a quick back-up – acorn squash. Not sure how the acorn squash was selected, but apparently, it worked!The result was apparently a big hit with my family, and she made them again for me to try when I was in town this past weekend.
In addition to subbing out the spinach with acorn squash, she made a couple other adjustments in types and amounts of ingredients. Plus, she changed the nut topping to slightly more streusel-like mixture. The adapted muffin was definitely a winner.
Acorn Squash Muffins with Sweet Walnut Topping {Recipe}
(by my sister, adapted from my Green Monster Muffins)
When my sister was midway through making a batch of my Green Monster muffins and realized there was no spinach in the house, she made a substitution using acorn squash instead. These delicious muffins are the result, and they offer another way to sneak a little bit of veggies into anyone’s breakfast or snack. 
PS: The ingredient list looks long, but these are really easy to make. I think the most difficult part is processing the acorn squash to get it grated!
Yields: 12 muffins
*Vegan options below*
Muffin Ingredients:
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 cup all purpose (unbleached) flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg (or use vegan substitute, like a flaxseed egg – 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons water – let sit for about 10 minutes)
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 single serving applesauce (or 1/2 cup), preferably no-sugar added
- 1 cup finely grated acorn squash, no skin (about 1/2 an acorn squash processed in food processor)
- 1/4 cup milk (we used skim) (or use vegan substitute, like soy, rice, hemp milk, etc.)
- 3 tablespoons canola oil (or other oil of choice)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon lemon zest
Sweet Walnut Topping Ingredients (optional):
- 1 tablespoon melted butter (or use vegan substitute, like Earth Balance)
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
Directions:
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a 12 cup muffin tin with non-stick spray.
- Add whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt into a medium bowl and whisk together.
- Whisk to beat egg and sugar together till light (I did this by hand for just a couple minutes).
- Whisk in applesauce, acorn squash, milk, canola oil, vanilla extract, and lemon zest.
- Pour dry ingredient mixture into the wet ingredient mixture, and stir gently just to combine – careful to not over-mix.
- Pour muffin batter into muffin tin cups – about 3/4 full each. If using walnuts topping, mix butter, brown sugar and walnuts together and evenly sprinkle walnut mixture on top of each muffin.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes until centers set or a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
- Cool at least 10-15 minutes, or until safe to eat, before serving.
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Thanks Sis. Happy baking! And thank you again to everyone who’s ever tried a TCL recipe. You guys keep me inspired to keep cooking, baking, and blogging.
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Thanks to my health-freak dad, I spent many-an-afternoon meandering through the health food store. Unlike other places he liked to shop, like Home Depot or Lowes, the health food store was a place my curiosity could really come out to play. I loved looking at all the unusual foods and products and often wondered what they tasted like or how they were prepared.
As it turns out, this fascination with unique foods has stayed with me to this day.
I love visiting grocery stores, especially health food ones like those my dad would frequent, and finding something I’ve never cooked with before to try out.
One thing I’ve been playing with lately is farro. Farro has been around for quite some time, but it isn’t widely used in most kitchens (at least not the ones I’ve been in…I think I’ve read this grain is actually popular in Italy, though).
While I love this Warm Farro Salad with Tomatoes, Spinach, and Shiitake Mushrooms (which is really more like a farro risotto), I wanted to come up with something a little more hands-off that was also more pantry-friendly. In fact, this recipe would be great for someone who’s new to farro and wondering, “How do you cook farro?” or “What’s an easy recipe for farro?”
This farro dish uses canned chickpeas (straight from the pantry), fresh garlic (I always have this on hand, but you could use dry garlic powder in a bind), and rosemary (which I have growing outside, but again you could you dry).
Rosemary Garlic Farro with Chickpeas
Whether you’re new to farro or very familiar with cooking it, this easy recipe should please your palate. Though it’s not the fastest side dish on the planet, this recipe is super easy and would be a great replacement for boxed rice pilaf. You could even turn it into a vegetarian entree (just add some veggies). Using ingredients found in most kitchens, you should be able to shop your pantry for this dish (in case you haven’t been to the grocery store in awhile). If you don’t have fresh garlic or rosemary, you can substitute dry.
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Total time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4-6 as a side dish, 2-3 as an entree
*Vegan, Vegetarian*
Ingredients:
- 1.5 quarts water
- handful salt, plus more to taste
- 1 cup dry farro, rinsed
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced (or sub 1/2-1 teaspoon dry – if using dry add garlic with rosemary in Step #3)
- 1 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 1 cup vegetable broth (or sub water)
- 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced (or sub 1 teaspoon dry)
- pepper, to taste
- fresh parsley, chopped, optional
Directions:
- Bring water to boil in a medium-large pot over medium heat. Add salt and farro and boil for about 30 minutes, or until farro is softened enough to easily chew. Pour into colander to drain.
- Heat extra virgin olive oil in a large skillet. Add fresh garlic (if using dry, add in next step) and cook till fragrant, about 60 seconds.
- Add chick peas, vegetable broth, fresh rosemary, broth, and cooked farro. Stir to combine.
- Cook 8-10 minutes to let flavors combine, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper, if/as needed.
- Serve, top with fresh parsley if using, and enjoy!
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Have you cooked with farro before? What did you think? I know i asked this last time, but I’m guessing there may be some new visitors here or people who hadn’t tried it at the time the first question was asked but have since then. 
