You Can Dislike Olive Oil and Still Love This Cake: Blood Orange and Olive Oil Upside-Down Cake

I've been admiring Claire Saffitz's "Blood Orange and Olive Oil Upside-Down Cake" ever since I got a copy of Dessert Person, because a gorgeous photo of the cake graces the cover of the cookbook. So while blood oranges were still readily available, I gave the recipe a try.

But here's the thing. I'm not someone who loves olive oil cakes. Because it so happens that I don't like the fruity flavor of extra virgin olive oil, and it doesn't matter whether it's the cheap stuff from the supermarket or the ungodly expensive gourmet variety. I would always choose butter over olive oil if the decision was based on flavor. Claire's recipe calls for a lot of olive oil, 1.25 cups. I was not enthused about the prospect of a cake that tasted like extra virgin olive oil, so I decided to use extra-light olive oil instead. I know someone people might think that undermines the entire point of making an olive oil cake, but hey -- I'm okay with that.

I ran into some difficulties right away, when I started slicing the oranges used to line the pan. Because you don't peel the oranges, it's important to slice the fruit as thinly as possible so that you don't end getting too much bitter pith in any given bite. This was surprisingly challenging. The oranges were too big to fit on our Benriner mandoline, so I had to use a knife. But the oranges were a bit squishy and I found it impossible to get straight slices. No only that, but when I did manage to get a nice, thin slice, the orange segments often separated and left a hole in the middle of the slice. I found the entire process frustrating, but I did the best I could. 

I greased a 10-inch springform pan, dropped in a parchment circle, and the spread a mixture of sugar and blood orange juice over the bottom. I arranged the orange slices on top, in an overlapping pattern. I set the pan aside while I made the batter, by whipping eggs and sugar until thick and pale; gradually incorporating the oil; and alternately adding the dry ingredients (cake flour, semolina flour, baking powder, and kosher salt) and wet ingredients (Cointreau, orange zest, and vanilla). I poured the batter over the orange slices and put the pan in the oven to bake. You preheat the oven to 400 degrees but turn it down to 350 degrees right after putting in the cake.

When I rotated the pan halfway through baking, I noticed that there was dark liquid seeping out of the pan. It was not cake batter, but the sugar syrup. I was using a Fat Daddio's springform pan that has a large flange on the base that will catch liquid that leaks out of the pan. Fortunately, the flange was wide enough to catch all of the liquid that came out, so I didn't end up with burnt caramel all over the bottom of my oven. I let the cake cool for 15 minutes before releasing from the pan. Or rather, trying too release it. The liquid that had leaked out during baking -- the mixture of sugar and blood orange juice -- had hardened into what was essentially caramel cement, and I could not get the sides to release from the pan or budge at all. I started to panic and then just tried inverting the pan onto a rack. The cake fell right out. I had to soak my springform pan for a while to dissolve the caramel and finally loosen the sides from the base.

That experience taught me a useful lesson, which is that you don't need to use a springform pan to make this recipe. It so happened that I was planning to make two of these cakes, but I needed to bake them seriatim because our oven is small and I would not be able to fit two 10-inch springform pans that are both 3-inches tall in the oven at the same time. So when I made my second cake, I just used a normal 10-inch round cake pan. Not only did the cake release without any problems, but the top of the cake (meaning the portion covered in oranges, which was on the bottom before inverting the cake) retained all of the sugar syrup and looked a lot better than my first cake where I lost a fair amount of the syrup.

One difference in the appearance of my cakes compared to Claire's is that both of my cakes had batter seep in under the oranges. As you can see in the photos above, there is some batter visible on top of the cake. By contrast, Claire's cake appears to be covered in a pristine and unbroken layer of orange slices. I don't know how she avoided having batter sneak underneath the fruit, but I wish I could have figured out how to do it. Still, the oranges on top were dramatic and this was certainly an eye-catching cake, even after being sliced. I used a serrated knife to cut the cakes, so that I could carefully saw through the orange slices on top.

This cake was light and delicious. The texture was tender, delicate, and very moist without being oily. The cake itself had a fairly mild orange flavor, but the fruit on top provided a strong boost of orange. There was definitely some bitterness from the pith, but it wasn't enough to be unpleasant. Oh, and I baked my cakes two days in advance of serving them and they still tasted awesome. The long shelf life of olive oil cakes is definitely a plus and I don't have any criticisms of this cake. I'm not sure if I would like it as much if it was made with extra virgin olive oil, but since I plan to always make it with a neutral-tasting oil, it doesn't really matter!

 

Recipe: "Blood Orange and Olive Oil Upside-Down Cake" from Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz, recipe available here and here.