Ersilia's Olive Oil Cake

I got the idea for an olive oil cake from the At Home with Michael Chiarello cookbook. I played around with ingredients making about 10 different cakes and then, if I do say so myself, I finally created the best olive oil cake recipe around. This is wonderful served with our recipe for Balsamic Strawberries .

Serves: 12 Servings

• 4 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup Trampolini Black Label EVOO
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• grated zest of 1 lg orange & lemon
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• pinch of salt
• confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Prepare a bundt pan with olive oil and flour.

Beat together the eggs and brown sugar until thick & frothy. Slowly add the olive oil. Then the orange and lemon zests and continue mixing well. In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Alternating in 2 batches add ½ of the flour mixture to the egg mixture, then ½ of the milk mixing until just blended with no lumps. Do not over mix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 1 hour. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Loosen the sides with a knife and invert onto a serving plate. Dust the cake with confectioners’ sugar.