Herby Citrus Cake

Inspired by New York Times Cooking

Ingredients

• About 2 tbsp butter, room temperature, for the pan
• 240g AP flour, plus a little more for the pan
• 3/4 c EVOO
• 110g sugar
• 1/4 tsp fiori de Sicilia
• 7g finely chopped fresh or frozen rosemary leaves
• 2 eggs
• 130g sour cream or greek yogurt (I usually keep nonfat greek yogurt on hand, but I had 5% fat and wowieeee it made this extra good!)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp diamond crystal salt

icing

• 2 tbsp orange juice (I found the best taste with juicing some clementines, but bottled orange juice is fine)
• 1/4 tsp fiori de Sicilia
• 135g powdered sugar
• Pinch of salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325F.
2. Grease a Bundt pan with butter, only going about halfway up the pan, then sprinkle flour in and tap away the excess.
3. Put the oil, sugar, fiori, and rosemary leaves in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix on medium until combined.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing just a bit between each.
5. Once they’re all in, mix for another minute until thick, then add sour cream/yogurt and mix until combined on low speed. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl if it seems like there’s unmixed stuff.
6. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together into the mixing bowl and mix on low until combined.
7. Increase speed to high and mix for 1 minute.
8. Scrape batter into the pan and smooth the top with a spatula as best you can - it’s very thick and if you don’t get it even, you’ll see it very clearly later!
9. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until cake is cooked and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto a serving plate. (If you care about aesthetics, you may want to trim the cake if it rises unevenly, to allow it to sit flat on the plate)
10. In a small bowl, whisk together icing ingredients until smooth.
11. When the cake has cooled, drizzle icing on top, allowing it to drip down the sides.

Thoughts

I first attempted this in 2022 thanks to getting rosemary in my CSA in summer and searching through my NYT Cooking saved recipes. Rosemary has long been a favorite herb, but I associated it with cooler month cooking and I’d never had it in a dessert before. The first time was good enough that I kept the recipe, but it wasn’t till this past winter that it really floored me. There comes a point in winter, at least to me, where the cooking gets a bit more inventive than usual. There’s only so much local, fresh food to go around! My dedication to this life means that I have a grandma-level stash of canned things in my laundry room and lots of ziplocks of things in my freezer from more plentiful seasons. Like herbs! Frozen stiff (there is a name for this…woody?) herbs are certainly not fresh but they are also not dried. If you have the will and the way to grow your own in brighter seasons, certain ones like thyme, rosemary, and oregano will store well in the freezer and save you good money and keeps you eating local even in darker times!

Okay back to this cake. The olive oil + rosemary facet makes it savory while the sugar and orange make it obviously dessert. I feel almost certain this recent version of the cake was improved many times over by just not using nonfat Greek yogurt. My dedication to keeping nonfat greek yogurt on hand is still reasonable, particularly as someone with high cholesterol, but if I needed to make this to REALLY impress…I’d go for the higher fat yogurt. Especially now that my finger is a bit more on the pulse of seasonal eating (and growing!), I see this cake with year-round uses. If you’re in the mood for a citrusy cake and you have some rosemary that you need to use…here you go!

• ← Almond Cookies
• Algy's English Muffins →