"I'm Sorry It's Been So Long" Rosemary Cake

I have been neglectful. My time to blog has been monopolized by some wonderful things and some truly gaggable things, to reincorporate a term I've also neglected in recent times. The following are my excuses (somewhat good, somewhat lame):

1.) Weekend travels. When I got a full time job, my blogging got pushed to the weekends. When I started going away every weekend to visit friends, see family, and attend the odd shower and/or wedding, my blogging got pushed to . . . never.

2.) Over commitment. Though I love to write this blog, it pays me no money. So, considering I am quitting my job to move to England and spend more money to live, eat, and educate myself, I've been doing some freelance writing and editing for not-very-mucho-bucks on the side. It has consumed the remaining hours in my week and drained my brain of writing drive.

All that is to say, I hope you will have me back. I am less than two week from my job's finale and, this week, I "forgot" to talk to my Senior Writer about picking up more stories to draft. So let's talk about cake.

This, my friends, is Rosemary Olive Oil Cake with Fresh Whipped Vanilla Cream (argggg I can't help but hear John McCain whenever I want to address my friends).

I did just say "rosemary" and "cake" in the same sentence. And, as you can see, there's also Dark Chocolate involved (I think Dark Chocolate should always be capitalized, now that I did that, inadvertently, above). Sometimes I think we foodies are pretty weird about combinations and it feels awfully pretentious to throw an herb into something just to "make it your own" (darn American Idol has infiltrated my vocabulary). But, my husband has said multiple times that rosemary is the BEST of all herbs, so I figured, "Melty chocolate for me . . . rosemary for him. Why not?" They look beautiful side by side.

I also LOVE that this uses only olive oil for moisture (with whole milk and eggs for texture and richness). It is a nice alternative to butter and an obvious dairy substitute when you need/want one. I plan to use it frequently now that I know I can.

The assembly is really quite simple, though it uses one weirdo thing: Spelt Flour. Probably substitutable, too.



The inspiration for putting this together came from this food blog (thanks to Sean for the recommendation!)

Cake Ingredients:

Olive oil for the pan
3/4 c. spelt flour
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 eggs
1 cup plus 1 Tbs. olive oil
3/4 cup whole milk
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate (70% cacao), chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2 tablespoons sugar for top crunch

Cream Ingredients:

            1 1/2 c. heavy whipping cream
            1 Tbs. sugar
            1 tsp. vanilla extract

Assembly of Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350º.
Rub your favorite 9 (or so) inch cake pan with 1 Tbs. of the Olive Oil and set aside.
Sift all the Dry Ingredients together into a large bowl and set aside.

Whisk the three Eggs thoroughly in another large bowl.

Add the remaining 1 cup of Olive Oil, Milk, and Rosemary and whisk again. Using a spatula, fold the wet ingredients into the dry and stir gently until they just come together.

The spelt flour makes it look a bit icky, sorry.

Add about 2/3 of the chocolate and stir in.

Pour all the batter into your greased pan. Sprinkle the rest of the chocolate on top (SUCH a good idea) and press in gently so that it's not sticking up too much, but not submerged. Sprinkle the top evenly with the Sugar.

Bake the cake for roughly 40 minutes. It will poof up and get to a nice golden brown hue. Always use the skewer-in-the-center trick, too. If you're sure to avoid large chocolate chunks when doing this test, the skewer should come out clean of batter.

While the cake cools a bit, put all the ingredients for the Vanilla Whipped Cream into the mixer and whisk on high until it's fluffed up nicely and will stay in its blop shape when you pair it with a healthy slice of this subtle and surprising cake. I wish I could accurately describe what the rosemary does for the cake, but it's really less about what you actually notice, than what you blissfully enjoy without realizing you've taken a pizza topping and thrown it into dessert. It's not weird that it's there. It's just . . . good.