I try, but don’t always manage it, to make a cake on a Sunday for afternoon tea but also to pad out the school lunch boxes during the week. I think this recipe may have come out of a Country Living magazine way back when. It’s so easy to remember (175g is the main amount) and is super quick to make. It’s not a gourmet cake by any means – just an everyday cake!

The basic recipe is for a plain cake using olive oil with some lemon zest & juice for flavouring. You could use a regular sunflower oil if you prefer. I have adapted the recipe many times – adding cocoa, seasonal fruit, coconut, muesli, bananas – whatever takes my fancy really or whatever needs using up. Recently I’ve taken to making it as an upside down cake. Yes, it’s more butter and sugar – but this adds an extra richness – and makes the cake a perfect pudding too.

I call this cake ‘Cut and come again’ – just because it’s easy to keep cutting another slice to have with another cup of tea, but also because it’s so quick and easy to make. Traditionally it may have been the name of a fruit cake – but I also like to think of The Magic Pudding – who really was a cut-and-come-again puddingy cake of a fellow!

Olive Oil Cut and Come Again Cake

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the basic recipe…

Whizz together:
3 large eggs
175ml light olive oil
175g caster sugar
(1 tsp vanilla)

Mix in:
175g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Juice + zest of a lemon.

Pour batter into a greased 9 inch round cake tin and bake in the oven for 40 minutes at 180 degrees C.

When warm you could  pour a mixture of dissolved sugar in lemon on top (as per a regular lemon cake) or just sprinkle with icing sugar.

Adaptations I have tried (& which actually worked out ok!):

• Fruit: simple cut some fruit (I’ve used apples, cherres, plums, tinned peaches) and place on top of the batter before putting in oven.
• Upside down version: cream together approx 75g butter and half a cup of brown sugar and spread this on the bottom of your already greased tin. Place cut fruit on top (I’ve used plums, apples, pineapple). And then pour the batter over the top. In the picture above left, I have also added 2 tbsp cocoa powder as part of the 175g flour. If you want a deeper toffee-type topping, just cream more butter and sugar!
• Banana & Muesli: I usually have quite a lot of black bananas piling up in the freezer, so I add 4 squishy bananas to the wet mixture and after adding the usual dry ingredients, I add about a cup of muesli, which absorbs the extra moisture from the bananas. If this isn’t enough, I add a handful of shredded coconut or half a cup of coconut flour. (NB coconut flour is amazingly absorbent and will densify any pudding or cake, or so I’ve found anyway.)
• Coconut: I haven’t tried this yet – using coconut oil instead of olive oil or maybe half and half.

Please let me know how your experiments go with this recipe. Comment below and post your photos too 🙂

[Health warning: many of the recipes on this site contain flour & sugar. I always recommend organic, single origin ingredients, preferably unbleached, and will endeavour to offer alternatives. As we so very painfully know, cancer cells love sugar – so please moderate your sweet treats.]