When I stopped at the sour cherry place last week to place my order (for a somewhat obscene amount of cherries), I couldn’t resist buying a small container of apricots. They were cheap, and so enticing, but when I brought them home I knew that I’d once again been taken by temptation rather than logic - the ‘cots were in no shape to be eaten out of hand. In other words, they were just asking to be baked.

Inspired by Aran’s beautiful Olive Oil Sponge from yesterday, I decided to make my own olive oil cake and incorporate the apricots within. The final recipe was borrowed mostly from Emily Luchetti’s plum cake recipe. I’m on a bit of a Luchetti kick lately as I’ve borrowed a few books from the library, so it seemed a fitting opportunity to see if her recipe was adaptable enough for my purposes. It was indeed. The texture of the cake was light and fluffy, enriched with the mellow, sweet apricots - and great for breakfast. There’s a slight crunch of cornmeal, but it’s more on the cakier side than most cornbreads and cornmeal cakes.

You’ll need about 6 apricots for the cake - I had a few extra, which I sliced and cooked with some sugar, water, and a drop of lemon to make a delightfully sticky compote that helped enhance the apricots in the cake. For the olive oil, I used Zoë, a reasonable all-purpose brand, as I wasn’t sure how much of the oil’s flavor would remain in the cake after baking it. It turned out the flavor was really quite subtle, so it would be worth using a fruitier, more powerfully-flavored extra-virgin oil.

Apricot Olive Oil Cake
inspired by Plum Cornmeal Cake in Emily Luchetti’s A Passion for Ice Cream

1 pound (about 6) ripe apricots, sliced or chopped into 1-inch pieces.
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing the pan
1 cup granulated sugar
zest from one medium lemon
3 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan with olive oil.

Sift the flour, and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in salt and cornmeal.

In a separate bow, whisk together the olive oil, sugar, and eggs. Add lemon zest, lemon juice, and milk, and whisk thoroughly to combine. Add the flour mixture in three batches, mixing until incorporated.

Spread about half of the mixture into the springform pan, spreading evenly. Place about half of the apricot pieces over the batter. Pour the rest of the batter into the pan and top with the remaining apricots.

Bake for 350ºF for about 35 minutes until a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Posted by the cookworm on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 10:19 pm.