Is coffee and extra virgin olive oil a good combination?

Try this coffee olive oil cake and you'll tell me.

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We have a thing for Starbucks. Until a few years ago, Starbucks for us meant that we were travelling abroad, as the first Italian Starbucks opened in Milan in the fall of 2018. We collected the Starbucks mugs from the cities we visited, and we have always found a safe harbour where to recharge our phones, use wifi and the toilet, and drink a decent coffee during our tourist meandering. Obviously, the more you travel the more you realize how much more exciting is to visit local independent cafés and try their specialty coffees or one of their buttery, fresh cakes. But still, when running through an airport or in need of half an hour of a break from your walking, Starbucks still proves to be a reliable place, because at least you know what to expect.

A coffee break in Starbucks to plan our London trip in 2014

Howard Schultz, the mind behind what Starbucks is now, had an epiphany when visiting Milan in 1983 for a business trip, where he came upon the central role of the coffee culture in Italian life. Once back in the US, he worked to introduce espresso into the US coffee culture, and this led to transform Starbucks into the largest coffee-house chain in the world.

Forty years later, during a trip to Sicily, he had another epiphany, but this time it didn’t involve just coffee, but also extra virgin olive oil.

This is how they tell the story on Starbucks’ blog:

Now Schultz and Starbucks have found inspiration in Italy again, this time in the sun-kissed olive groves of Sicily with the introduction of a new line of beverages, Oleato, Starbucks coffee infused with Partanna extra virgin olive oil. The new beverages are making their debut tomorrow (Feb. 22) at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery Milan and in Starbucks stores in Italy, followed by Southern California in the United States this spring. 

Last year, Schultz was traveling in Sicily when he discovered something equally dynamic and interesting. After being introduced to the Mediterranean custom of taking a spoonful of olive oil each day, he soon began enjoying a spoonful of Partanna extra virgin olive oil as part of his daily ritual in addition to his morning coffee, and soon he had the idea of trying the two together. What he discovered was a delicious and unexpected alchemy of Starbucks coffee beverages infused with Partanna extra virgin olive oil.

So, extra virgin olive oil and coffee, quite an unusual combination, but two of the cornerstones of the Italian food culture. I don't know how it will work in a drink but, as an extra-virgin olive oil enthusiast, this news intrigued me immediately. How could they work together? in which recipes? My mind run immediately to my favourite olive oil chocolate cake, and I started thinking about a soft, moist extra virgin olive oil pound cake infused with coffee.

This is how the idea for my coffee & extra virgin olive oil cake was born.

Something to read and watch about the new Starbucks Oleato coffee and about coffee in general:

• Did Starbucks Really Put Olive Oil in Coffee? on The New Yorker

• Skyler and Giuseppe from

  Skyler and Giuseppe's Newsletter
  tried to make their own olive oil coffee. Mind you, Giuseppe is an Italian olive oil producer from Calabria, so he knows a few things about extra virgin olive oil. This is their fun video.

• Coffee: A Connoisseur's Companion, by Claudia Roden, is a 1994 little book about all that coffee has to offer and the infinite possibilities that can be explored. It has also a section of recipes, including tiramisu and a walnut coffee cake I can’t wait to try.

• In Italy we have a strong coffee culture, but is the quality of coffee as high as you would expect? Spoiler: no. We believe our coffee is the best in the world, but - in most of the coffee places - it is not sustainable and of a very poor quality (either burnt, too acid ot simply not made how it is supposed to be made). If you can read Italian, this is a very thorough article: Caffè, il più clamoroso equivoco gastronomico d'Italia.

• I love Bernulia’s drawings made with coffee, so poetic.

bernulia

A post shared by Giulia Bernardelli (@bernulia)

Which is the most unusual flavour combination you have ever tried? something that you thought it would not work and that, eventually, turned out to be fabulous? Let me know in the comments!

NOTE. As usual, when I write "olive oil" I always mean extra virgin olive oil. It is the only "olive oil" that an Italian would consider.

RECIPE - Coffee & extra virgin olive oil cake

It begins as a pound cake, known as quattro quarti in Italian. This is probably the cake I make more often, especially in its version made with extra virgin olive oil, the most appreciated during our cooking classes, but also the one I rely on when I don’t have a clear idea of what to bake.

It calls for very simple ingredients, from your pantry. It has the scent and flavour of a time-past cake, one your grandmother would make, to keep in her kitchen cupboard. Once baked, it can indeed be kept for a few days on a plate, or on a cake stand, at hand, a slice for your afternoon snack, one for your breakfast, along with a cup of tea, one if you feel a little peckish… this makes for a traditional cake to know, and to love, an ace up your sleeve.

The original pound cake contained one pound each of eggs, sugar, flour and butter. Hence its English name, pound cake, and its French or Italian name, quattro quarti, four quarters.

You can read more about the philosophy and technique of pound cake here in the blog archive. With today’s recipe, I picked olive oil as my fat of choice in the pound cake, instead of butter.

The interesting part comes when you replace butter with extra virgin olive oil (or another vegetable oil).

You get a soft, moist pound cake, which keeps for longer. In this case, I prefer not to use the same amount, as the result would be a cake which is at the same time too greasy and too dry.

Butter is usually made of 83% of fat, while the remaining part is water. Extra virgin olive oil, or a good vegetable oil, is 99.9% fat. What is missing in the oil to make the cake soft is indeed a part of the water.

Therefore, to simplify it, when I make a pound cake I use ⅔ of extra virgin olive oil and ⅓ of water. Sometimes, based on the other ingredients and on the result I want to get, I replace the water with orange or tangerine juice, coffee, tea, plant milk, or sweet wine, like a vinsanto.

There’s how I came to today’s ingredient list, where you find eggs, flour, sugar, extra virgin olive oil, espresso and unsweetened cocoa powder, to enhance the brown colour and the taste of coffee.

I went one step further and decided to glaze the cake with a chocolate ganache made with dark chocolate and coffee-infused extra virgin olive oil.

Which is the best extra virgin olive oil to use?

I’m used to the flavour of extra virgin olive oil in cakes, it is actually something I enjoy and search for. But if this is your first time baking with olive oil, opt for a light fruity extra virgin: soft and delicate, with mild or slightly accentuated spicy and bitter notes, they can have hints of hazelnuts, pine nuts, and almonds. For example, a Ligurian extra virgin olive oil would be perfect here.

What about the coffee?

The coffee flavour comes from a double shot of unsweetened espresso (80 ml / ⅓ cup) and from two teaspoons of instant coffee melted in the espresso, to power up its aroma.

I also infused the extra viring olive oil used for the chocolate ganache with a tablespoon of coffee beans for 24 hours: subtle, but elegant. I used the regular coffee beans we use daily for our espresso.

As a result, you have an elegant cake, infused with coffee, that you can serve after a meal with an espresso, or in the morning with your foamy cappuccino.

I’m not sure if the combination of extra virgin olive oil and coffee works in the Starbucks drink, you’ll have to tell me, but it does work in my coffee olive oil cake, which I warmly suggest you try for your next weekend's baking project!

And now, let’s bake it!

Serves 8

For the chocolate ganache

• 50 grams /4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 tablespoon coffee beans

• 140 grams / 5 oz 70% dark chocolate, finely chopped

For the cake

• 3 eggs

• 180 grams / ¾ cup + 2⅓ tablespoons granulated sugar

• 130 grams / ⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil

• 80 ml / ⅓ cup espresso

• 2 teaspoons instant coffee

• 160 grams / 1⅓ cups all-purpose flour

• 20 grams / 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

• 8 grams / 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 pinch salt

The day before you want to make the cake, pour the olive oil into a small cup and add the coffee beans. Infuse the coffee in the olive oil for 24 hours, or longer.

The day after, make the cake. Heat the oven to 180°C (350 degrees F).

Beat the eggs and the sugar until creamy.

Stir in the olive oil and espresso, and mix until perfectly incorporated.

Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt and add them to the batter. Whisk to remove all the lumps. The cake batter will be quite runny and the smell of extra virgin olive oil quite persistent: don’t worry, once baked and cooled down the flavours will be nicely balanced.

Grease a 20-cm/8-inch round cake pan and line it with parchment paper. Fold the paper so that it sticks to the edges of the pan.

Scrape the pound cake batter into the pan, then transfer into the hot oven.

Bake the pound cake for about 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake’s centre comes out clean.

When the pound cake is ready, remove it from the oven and transfer it to a rack. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert it out of the pan onto the rack and cool completely.

Prepare the chocolate ganache. Filter the olive oil and discard the coffee beans. You’ll only need 30 grams (2¼ tablespoons) of extra-virgin olive oil for the chocolate ganache.

Collect the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl, place it over a small pot of simmering water, and stir with a spatula until the chocolate is melted.

Pour in the olive oil in a thin stream, stirring carefully and thoroughly with a spatula, so that the two ingredients can be perfectly mixed.

Let the chocolate cool down for about 20 minutes, or until it starts to be less runny - it highly depends on the temperature in your kitchen.

Pour the chocolate into the cake, and let it drip on the edges. Let the chocolate ganache cool down completely, then transfer the cake to a serving plate. When the ganache is cold - you will understand this because it will turn opaque -, the cake is ready to be served.

This cake will keep nicely for a few days at room temperature, on a tray or a cake stand, or on the kitchen table.

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If you need to print this recipe to keep it in your kitchen and use for scribbling down your notes, you find the printable PDF below and you can print just odd pages to avoid photos and save ink.

Coffee & extra virgin olive oil cake

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Download the printable recipe for the Coffee & extra virgin olive oil cake

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If you make this recipe, share it via email and send me a picture at juls@julskitchen.com, or on Social Media using the hashtags #myseasonaltable #julskitchen and #lettersfromtuscany, and tag @julskitchen

And now, are you ready for another coffee cake?

Even though we usually prefer extra virgin olive oil to butter when cooking - and nonna is no exception - when it comes to baking, my grandmother has always been quite liberal with butter. She is famous in the family for a fridge cake she would assemble in the summer with dry cookies, butter and sugar, with a drizzle of alchermes to turn the buttercream into a pinkish frosting, and a flurry of toasted, chopped hazelnuts on top. Or the mantovana cake from Artusi’s cookbook she baked the first time my mum visited the family for lunch, made with an outrageous amount of butter. Her coffee cake makes no exception.

This second coffee cake recipe today is for paid subscribers. You can find the recipe and some more photos of my grandma’s vintage cookbook and Livia blowing out her nonno’s birthday candles at the following link.

A vintage torta al caffè, coffee cake

So what would you prefer? A coffee olive oil cake or an all-butter coffee cake?

The 2023 Cooking Class season is open!

I am a born and bred Tuscan home cook: I learnt to cook thanks to my grandma, and to feed the people I love thanks to my mum. I’ve been writing professionally about Tuscany for 10 years, teaching classes for more than 12 years and cooking for all my life, standing on a stool in the kitchen next to my grandma and mum.

You’ll visit my family house in the Sienese countryside. Here, you will roll up your sleeves and wear an apron, as you will learn traditional recipes passed down from generations and sit for a family-style meal. Tommaso will take care that your glass is never empty and he will gladly share our homemade limoncello.

Choosing a class with us means escaping for a day to the slower-paced countryside, far from the charming buzz of big, touristic cities. Slow down and be ready to live a day as a local: hearty homemade food is included.

Learn more about our cooking classes here.

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• March 15th, 2023 - Market to Table Cooking Class - 2 spots available

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Once you pre-ordered the book, head over here where you can receive an instant download of the Cucina Povera Bonus Recipe Booklet, featuring six delicious recipes that will complement the final edition of the cookbook.

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Join me at Milk Street Online Cooking School to learn about the roots and development of cucina povera through some of the classic Italian dishes.

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Cost: $29.95

I have a 15% off discount code for you: use the code CUCINA when you book your spot.

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