40/52 Grapefruit Olive Oil Cake

Doesn't the name of this cake already give you a good feeling?

That's what it did to me when I stumbled upon the recipe a while ago.

Fresh, light, citrussy grapefruit meets heavy, green olive oil - how much more intense can it get?
At least that's what I thought...

I decided to make this cake to bring to work to celebrate my birthday. To make it easier and prettier, I chose to bake small, individual cakes so that everybody could have one.

Please do read all the way to the end of the post. "The taste" should be an especially interesting (and surprising) read today.

Grapefruit Olive Oil Cake

Adapted from The Yellow House

1-2 grapefruits, depending on the size

200 g (1 cup) sugar

about 2 tablespoons buttermilk (or plain yoghurt), amount depending on size of grapefruit

3 eggs

160 ml (2/3 cup) olive oil

140 g (1 3/4 cups) flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

For the glaze:

4 tablespoons powdered sugar

grapefruit juice

• Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F).
• Zest the grapefruits into a bowl. Add sugar and combine well to let the grapefruit flavor the sugar.
• Squeeze half a grapefruit (or more, if you have very small grapefruits) into a measuring cup. Add buttermilk or yoghurt to make 160 ml (2/3 cup). Add to bowl with sugar/zest mix and whisk well. Whisk in the eggs and olive oil.
• In another bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt). Slowly stir into wet ingredients until just combined. Pour batter into prepared pan (loaf or bundt) and bake for 50-55 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before glazing.

• For glazing, take cake out of pan. Squeeze other grapefruit half and mix powdered sugar with grapefruit juice. Take small amounts of juice and stir well to reach the perfect glaze consistency. Use a spoon of knife to glaze the cake evenly.

My modifications:

I only used all-purpose flour instead of a mix of all-purpose and whole weat flour.

For the glaze I only used powdered sugar instead of a mix of brown and powdered sugar. I made this one first, as suggested in the original recipe, but didn't like it. Who wants to bite on the brown sugar pieces that don't dissolve? I don't so I went back to the classic glaze with just powdered sugar.

As I said above, I made small, individual cakes so the baking time went down to 20-25 minutes. And of course I didn't take them out of their paper pans for glazing.

The taste:

Moist, citrussy, and veeeeery good!

BUT - and this was a huge disappointment to me - they taste like your "ordinary" lemon cake. And trust me, I had all me colleagues to confirm this. After taking the first bite, they ALL said "Mmmh, lemon cake". Maybe it was my grapefruit. Maybe it just wasn't grapefruity enough. And it is just a citrus fruit after all, just like lemon.

As for the olive oil, you can taste it a teeny, tiny bit. But only if you know that it is in there...

Sorry for not showing you the glazed version. It was very late when I glazed them and then they all went to work with me...

Any recipes you tried that did not meet your expectations at all?