Olive Oil Cake

 

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When I tried my first slice of olive oil cake, I was immediately reminded of the Ecuadorian quesadilla cake, which used to be one of my favorite sweet treats. Unfortunately, the quesadilla cake is loaded with saturated fat from butter and parmesan cheese and also contains loads of refined sugar. On the other hand, the moistness and taste of the quesadilla cake are amazing. It took me a long time to find the right quesadilla recipe and then I stopped making it for health reasons. 

Now I unexpectedly found a replacement that is as moist and delicious, but super healthy. My first try at baking it was pretty good, but again, I experimented for quite a while until I got to what I consider the perfect result.  It contains almond flour, fat free Greek yoghurt, stevia or monk fruit sweetener which I also supplement with some yacon syrup, which is optional. I serve it on a fresh mango/papaya sauce to add even more flavor. It is definitely a family favorite and in their opinion does not even taste like anything in the category of healthy foods; it is that good!

Olive Oil Cake Recipe

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Ingredients:

4 large eggs

½ cup stevia or monk fruit sweetener or half stevia/monk fruit and half yacon syrup

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup Greek yoghurt

Juice and zest of one lime

2 cups almond flour

¼ cup oat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 pinch of Himalayan pink salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Whisk eggs in the blender until they are creamy. Add sweetener, olive oil, yoghurt, lime juice and zest and blend until smooth. In a separate bowl mix all dry ingredients and blend into batter until smooth.

Grease a 9 inch cake pan with avocado oil and add batter. Bake at 350°F for 40 to 50 minutes. Check with a wooden toothpick in the center after 40 minutes. The cake is done when it comes out clean. Let cool before cutting.

Serving suggestion: Spread a thin layer of fruit sauce on a plate. Add a slice of olive oil cake and decorate with a dash of Greek yoghurt and a slice of lime. Enjoy!

I dare you to make this cake and serve it to your friends and family and make them guess what it contains. It used to work for the quesadilla cake where the surprise ingredient is parmesan cheese. It works just as well with this recipe. It’s fun!

Fruit Sauce

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To make a fruit sauce which I serve with the olive oil cake slices I simply blend fresh fruit. I have the luxury of getting fresh mangos and papayas from our backyard. Mangos by themselves are too sweet for me, that is why I mix them with papayas. I do not like the taste of papaya too much but together they make the most delicious sauce. Those fruits can also be found in the freezer aisle of your supermarket and work just as well. Beware of canned fruits, they should not have any added sugar or added “natural flavors”. Peaches and pineapples would yield a similar result. Whatever your favorite fruits are, just try it. Some fruits and especially berries will probably require a touch of sweetener.

Following I will discuss the ingredients I use in this cake and how I decide which ones I choose. I will have more blogs on food products in the future but I need to do a lot more research on many items. You will be able to find the blogs on my website www.foodiewithpurpose.com.

A Word About Eggs

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Eggs are as good as the chickens they come from. There are different descriptions of the life circumstances of the chickens that lay the eggs which end up in the supermarkets. Regular eggs probably come from chickens that have been exposed to additives in their food which we would not want in our bodies. Then of course there are cage-free chickens. This means that the chickens were not kept in cages, but often indoors under bad conditions and it really does not give us any clue about their feed. Just the fact that they did not live in cages does not make them happier or healthier. I like to buy eggs from free range chickens which are actually allowed to peck outdoors in the fields. But how much fertilizer and other additives were in the stuff they pecked outside? Meet the free-range organic chickens. Can we be sure that they were not exposed to anything we would not want to eat? Absolutely not! But at least we know that they did not get any harmful feed or were kept in deplorable conditions. Another word of caution: Just because the egg yolk is very orange in color does not mean that it is healthier; carrots in their feed can do that.

Olive Oil

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To find more information about the oils I use and definitely not use, please check my blog https://foodiewithpurpose.com/using-healthy-fats-for-delicious-recipes/. There you can read about different kinds of fats and why I only have extra virgin olive oil and extra virgin avocado oil in my house. I do a lot of research on oils and when I find one I want to try I do a blind taste test with my husband. So far the Italian extra virgin olive oil from Costco has won. I also found a lot of material about avocado oil and I am very happy with the extra virgin avocado oil from Chosen Foods which I always order from Amazon in 2 liter bottles. The avocado oil spray from Chosen Foods, on the other hand, is refined and I am on the lookout for another one. It is just very convenient to use and sometimes comes in very handy, but for now I use bottled avocado oil and a silicone brush. I have two decorative bottles on my kitchen counter, one for olive oil, one for avocado oil so I always have it within reach. Of course they are in addition to my spiced olive oil container. You can find that recipe in my oil blog https://foodiewithpurpose.com/using-healthy-fats-for-delicious-recipes/

So Many Flours

I do not have any refined white flour in my kitchen, be it regular white flour or enriched white flour. In my opinion they are equally bad for us. Whenever I use a recipe that traditionally calls for white flour, I use combinations of organic oat flour, flaxseed meal, almond flour, and sometimes a little bit of organic whole wheat flour if I need the gluten. Please note that almond flour and oat flour absorb quite a bit of moisture and sometimes we need to adjust some of the recipes a bit. I personally do not like the taste of chickpea flour and do not use it when baking for my family. I do use it to make dog treats which our dogs seem to love.

Choose Your Sweeteners Well!

I have always tried to not eat a lot of sugar. We all know it’s bad for us, really bad! Artificial sweeteners are not better, some say they are even worse than refined sugar. Nevertheless, completely depriving ourselves of a bit of indulgence here or there is often not doable. I know, I like a little treat once in a while. Therefore, I did a lot of reading about sweeteners. By far, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners seem to be the worst for our bodies and can lead to obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, just to name a few effects. Agave shows an even higher glycemic index than sugar. A little bit better are honey and maple syrup simply because they are natural and have other health benefits. Coconut sugar does not convince me either. If I use sweetener in any recipe I now use stevia or monk fruit sweeteners. I recently found a product where both are combined. I also ordered yacon syrup, which comes from the yacon root which grows in the Andes and is produced in Peru. The yacon root is a very healthy root vegetable, similar to sweet potato. The syrup is not too sweet and very expensive, so I do not let anybody in my family pour it over pancakes or waffles but use it to make compotes to use for the healthy versions of those breakfast treats.

Salt

I usually use a Himalayan pink salt instead of refined table salt. Both seem to have the same potency and I do not think that it is much different when it comes to their effect on blood pressure, which is an issue for me, but Himalayan pink salt is less refined. It comes from the salt mines in the Himalayas and so far I have not found a reason not to buy it. Sea salt would be another alternative but I personally find the taste too weak and I tend to have to use too much of it to get the taste I am looking for. Whenever it comes to salt I try to use it in moderation and also experiment with other flavors to achieve good taste without salt or with less.

More recipes coming soon to my website www.foodiewithpurpose.com