An Experiment with Olive Oil: Apple and Cherry Cake

First up, this is one of those recipes that didn’t do too well. I was intrigued by Nigella’s recipe of a cake that used olive oil and I thought it’d be a healthy alternative to a butter cake. Plus, with apple and cherries (I substituted those for the original raisins), what could go wrong?

Nobody except me seemed to like it. DC said the olive oil smell made him think of chicken rice. Don’t ask me how that man thinks, but in my world, chicken rice isn’t made with olive oil. My mum asked whether it was supposed to be bread or cake. I guess they thought it a tad dry. I wonder what’s wrong with my taste buds because I found it moist enough, and not too horribly sweet. I liked how the apple and cherry brought in bits of texture and flavour to the cake and thought it was a nice homespun type of thing to eat for breakfast.

All the same, if you’re game for something controversial, or have run out of butter and there’s nothing except olive oil and apples in the kitchen, then please try this recipe and let me know if you got any better reviews!

Ingredients:

100g dried cherries (I just used an entire 120g pack, go ahead to substitute with raisins)
100ml rum
150ml olive oil
200g sugar
3 eggs
350g plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp  cream of tartar
½ tsp salt
4 apples (smallish), peeled, cored and coarsely chopped

Method:

1. Butter and flour a 20 cm springform cake tin.
2. Heat cherries with rum in a saucepan, bring a boil and then take off the heat, allowing the rum to soak into the cherries. Alternatively, soak the cherries in rum the night before.
3. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
4. Using the whisk attachment of a cake mixer, beat the oil and sugar together briefly, then add in the eggs one by one. Beat for a few minutes till well incorporated.
5. While the mixture is beating, measure out the dry ingredients and sift them together. Fold into the egg mixture. The batter will end up quite stiff.
6. Then drain the cherries and mix with apples (this is to make sure that the apples and cherries are well dispersed in the batter), then stir it into the cake batter. Give it a few good stirs to spread out the fruit evenly, then dollop the batter into the springform tin.
7. Bake till a cake tester comes out fairly clean, i.e. no wet batter and only bits of crumb, about 1 hour.
8. Let the cake stand in the tin for about 10 minutes, then turn out and leave to cool. Slice and let plenty of people try, I’d like some comments please!

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Smokey’s

We saw Smokey’s one of those days wandering in the Joo Chiat area and it was a nice coincidence when Fee suggested going there for dinner. As it name hints, it specialises in smoked barbecued items. For starters, we had jalapeno poppers, those breaded and deep fried mild green chillis stuffed with sin. Oh my the cream cheese oozing out really worked, gimme more!

Fee insisted on ordering a serving of fish and chips despite my misgivings that this was a smokehouse specialising in ribs for crying out loud! Boy was I mistaken, these are possibly the most unique fish and chips ever. They’d somehow been marinated in smoke, then battered and deep fried till almost ethereally crisp. The fish was smooth and tender, almost nostalgic in its old school fish finger-like consistency. It was the combination of smoky marinade and really great fish and chips that won me over. In fact, this to me was the best dish of the night. The fries were also good, crisp outside and fluffy inside, though they didn’t hold up once they got cold. The coleslaw was very decent, with both white and purple cabbage. I liked that the veg tasted fresh and the crunchy stuff wasn’t overwhelmed by onion. Thumbs up!

The star of the show was meant to be the ribs. DC wanted the St Louis ribs, so a full rack it had to be.  I must admit they were well marinated and quite nice. Too bad they were rather dry, as it they’d been left on a low barbecue for too long. No doubt there was a disclaimer in the menu that the ribs here weren’t pre-cooked and therefore wouldn’t fall off the bone in tenderness. But these fellas were dry and hardly a shot from tenderness! It was a disappointment to me, especially after the fish and chips stole the show.

Be odd. Come here for the fish and chips. Oh yes, the portions are big too. A full rack of ribs, a portion of fish and chips and the jalapeno poppers stuffed up two big eaters and two medium eaters big time.

Smokey’s
73 Joo Chiat Pl
Tel: 6345 6914