2007 Archives: Lucini Organic Olive Oil
Even Andrew Weil endorses it. That’s a pretty high compliment for any olive oil, but this isn’t just any oil, it’s organic, of artisan quality, and cultivated in Italy where they know from sustainable agriculture. While all this stuff sounds great, we pretty much thought an olive’s an olive’s an olive until we tasted and sure enough, Lucini Premium Select Extra Virgin Organic Olive Oil just tastes…better, more olive-y somehow and with a little nutty back flavor. Yum! So for you olive oil aficionados out there, we got together with Chef Charlie Trotter of Charlie Trotter’s restaurant in Chicago for a cake recipe that blows the socks off your old-school Betty Crocker box variety. Let them eat cake. Olive oil cake, that is.
Charlie Trotter’s Olive Oil Sauternes Cake
Serve with warm pear compote and caramel ice cream
5 eggs, separated
2 egg whites
1 tbsp combined orange, lime and lemon zest
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup Sauternes (sweet, white dessert wine)
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Whip yolks and 1/2 sugar until pale, add zest. Fold in flour and salt, then fold in Sauternes and olive oil. In a separate bowl, whip egg whites with remaining 1/2 cup sugar until medium stiff peaks form. Fold whites into egg yolks mixture. Bake in a buttered pan (he recommends a buttered spring form pan lined with buttered parchment paper, but that seems like a helluva lot of work) at 375 for 20 minutes, then at 325 for another 20 minutes. Serve. Eat. Bask in the compliments from your admiring guests in an “I can’t believe it’s not butter” moment.
