I have been waiting for the perfect honey recipe to come along, one that is deserving enough to feature the delicious thyme honey that I bought from a local producer, and this is definitely the one. I’ve been trying recently to use olive oil instead of butter whenever possible in my cooking. . I’ve seen quite a few Italian recipes for olive oil cakes and wanted to give it a try and had some delicious extra virgin olive oil that I helped to harvest back in November. I thought, ‘Local olive oil and local honey? This has got to be good.’ I wasn’t wrong …
Honey, apple, date & walnut olive oil cake
makes 16 squares
- 3 large eggs (room temperature)
- 130 g brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
- 165 ml good olive oil
- 260 g runny honey (coat the measure with a little olive oil so the honey slips out easily)
- 375 gr wholemeal flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 – 2 apples, peeled,cored and roughly diced. I used 1 1/2 large fuji apples (you need something crisp).
- 100 g walnuts, roughly chopped
- 100 g dates, stoned and roughly chopped, plus a few extra for garnish
- a small tub of mascarpone/creme fraiche
- extra honey
Preheat the oven to 180 °C and line a 22×33 cm (approx.) cake/roasting tin with baking paper (base & sides). Beat the eggs, brown sugar & vanilla (if using) in a large bowl with an electric mixer for about five minutes, until light & fluffy. Slowly add in the honey and oil bit by bit, beating until well blended.
Into another bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, then tip in the wholewheat bits left in the sieve as well. Stir to combine. Add the flour mixture, apples, walnuts and dates to the wet ingredients and fold together gently until just blended (Don’t overmix you will get a tough cake).
Pour the mixture in to the lined baking tin and spread out evenly. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes or until the top is firm and golden brown. Leave to cool in the tin.
Cut into 16 squares and serve with coffee and a pot of mascarpone drizzled with honey and topped with dates or walnuts.
