"The rosemary is the wild card factor here. And it's so good. It heats up in the oven as the cake is baking and permeates the cake in a subtle but steady way, not at all overpowering." Heidi - 101 Cookbooks
It's a cake for me because, if you didn't know already, my christian names are Rosemary and Olive. Rosemary for remembrance, and Olive for my mother, whose name it was and another reason for remembering.
It is also a cake for me because my friend Monika made it, sort of for me - well just because it was appropriate I think and because she had enjoyed my recent post on afternoon tea.
Anyway this is it. And look how it matches the Provençal tablecloth. More memories - this time of Provence and also of holidays that we have enjoyed in Europe with Craig and Monika.
She is going to send me the recipe but I'm pretty sure it's this one from the Coles Magazine - Olive oil cake with citrus and rosemary. It looks so like it. And I do want the recipe because it was absolutely delicious. I might make it for our next book group, because we can now meet in person and so we can eat cake.
You wouldn't necessarily think that rosemary would be good in a cake would you? It has such a strong scent - a scent of the Mediterranean - well France and Italy for me anyway. Rosmarinus - its Latin name - means dew of the sea. Which is also just lovely. There has barely been a house that we have rented in both of those countries which has not had a rosemary bush in the garden. When staying in these beautiful places we always hunt for herbs in the garden that we can use in our cooking and rosemary is a faithful friend, although most often used in casseroles and other meat and vegetable dishes - particularly for lamb and potatoes. Well we are not often making cakes on holiday - however, simple an olive oil cake is, because - well I anyway - need a recipe to make a cake. You need to be a bit more precise with cakes. And besides why wouldn't you just buy cake from a French patisserie or an Italian pasticciera? I was going to use the excuse of not having cookbooks, but these days that is a pretty feeble excuse of course, because it's all online. Including this particular recipe.
And did I mention the rosemary scented cream that you serve the cake with? So subtle and so delicious.
It was such a beautiful thing for Monika to do, such a delicious cake to eat and a perfect way to round off a perfect day. We had spent the morning walking around the nearby Lilydale lake, and returned to our friends' house for lunch. The weather was perfect, the recently released Melburnians were out enjoying the freedom - jogging, strolling, fishing, playing with their dogs or their not quite toy yachts, whilst the wildlife went on with their lives, coaching their babies in watercraft and the flowers bloomed. Everyone was there - young and old, fat and thin, yummy and not so yummy mummies, grandmas and granddads, the fit and the struggling. As we commented as we strolled, how lucky we are to live in a city with such a wealth of open space in which to relax and breathe.
We rambled then and I ramble now remembering what a lovely day it was. New memories, after all, are created every day.
Rosemary is closely associated with memory and intellect - since ancient times and:
"When plague ravaged the land, it was burned in a bid to drive off the contagion, and even in more wholesome times rosemary was strewn on the floors of churches - a symbol of remembrance and a prophylactic against the stink of life." Nikki Duffy - River Cottage A-Z
'The stink of life' is a bit extreme and certainly wasn't in evidence yesterday - or today either, come to that. I am sitting in the sun outside with my laptop today. The first time of the summer which lies just around the corner.
But back to the cake. I think of olive oil cakes as being Italian, but I cannot find the evidence for this. They may well be a common thing all around the Mediterranean. And olive oil, rosemary and citrus cakes can be found in abundance on the net. As well as the rosemary you might also think that olive oil has too strong a flavour for a cake, but no - trust me the combination is just perfect, with the citrus adding the final perfect flavour boost.
Using olive oil rather than butter is also easier and quicker - no need to remember to take the butter out of the fridge before you begin and it adds moisture which keeps the cake for longer:
"Olive oil is fattier than butter with no water factor. There's a theory that the percentage of water in butter interacts with the flour in a cake batter to form more gluten strands. This results in a more structured and less tender cake." Heidi - 101 Cookbooks
So here are a few examples that you might try some from big names in the cooking world, some from foodie blogs. Let's begin with the big names and, in this case with Yotam Ottolenghi, who says of his Rosemary, olive oil and orange bundt cake:
"Often, though, the role played by citrus is more of a supporting one and – if we define magic as that which brings about an effect without showing its hand at work – a little bit magic."
like the rosemary itself.
Hetty McKinnon also sticks to the orange, rosemary and olive oil combination for her Rosemary orange olive oil cake, but Maggie Beer goes for apples in her Apple, rosemary and olive oil cake and Anna Jones for chocolate in this Chocolate, olive oil and rosemary loaf as does Heidi of 101 Cookbooks who presents Kim Boyce's recipe for Rosemary olive oil cake. She doesn't mention the chocolate but there is certainly plenty there. All those dark bits.
In the collection below I am first of all including a recipe from Donna Hay - Orange and rosemary cake because it was, of course, beautiful and also just to show that you can make an orange and rosemary cake with butter too.. It looks Christmassy. Citrus does seem to be the favourite pairing for the rosemary and so we also have: Olive oil cake with lemon and rosemary from Jorge Fernandez and Rick Wells who seem to be famous in America, Orange olive oil cake with rosemary & cardamom drizzle from Rosie Birkett, who may or may not be famous on the BBC Good Food site and Almond, lemon and rosemary syrup cake from a blog called Bake Club.
And you know in spite of all those famous cooks serving up an offering on the theme, I think the Coles one actually looks as good, if not better than any of them.
So get cooking and invite your friends around for afternoon tea on the terrace, with or without the beautiful china tea cups and plates. And coffee goes perfectly with cake too.
POSTSCRIPT
Just to show how one thing leads to another. On the opposite page to the River Cottage A-Z page on rosemary was this rather lovely painting of a rose which I then realised was to illustrate how to make rose petal honey. I almost rushed up to my rose bush to give it a try, but perhaps Monika will. She has beautiful old-fashioned heavily scented roses in her garden and she loves to try new things. It's simple:
For a 340 jar of clear honey, you will need 50g (around 5-6 roses) - no pesticides of course. Gently warm the jar of honey by sitting it unopened in a bowl of hot water. Make sure your petals are bug free and pack them into a 400ml jam jar with a tight-fitting metal lid. Pour the honey over the petals. Seal and give a good shake. Leave to infuse on a sunny windowsill for 6-7 days. The petals will rise to the surface so shake the jar every day. Lightly warm the jar again and strain the honey through a fine sieve into a clean jar. Store in a cool dark place. Yes I might try that. Our semi-wild roses do smell a bit.
The original honey needs to be mild tasting - but that's probably obvious.
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