Buckwheat olive oil cake

This buckwheat olive oil cake has a super fine, plush crumb and a rich chocolate ganache enhanced with toasted milk powder. The perfect use for a high-quality olive oil and your favorite dark chocolate!

This olive oil cake was inspired by attending the Taste of Europe Challenge in Grand Central Terminal, a cooking challenge featuring cheese, chocolate and olive oil from Europe.

It was a dream afternoon! As two contestants competed in a head-to-head challenge using various products from Europe to win over the judges, we tasted five different cheeses, three different olive oils and 5 different chocolates from various countries including Ireland, Estonia, Germany and The Netherlands. The event was part of the More Than Food campaign, celebrating the traditions, unique flavors, and stories behind European food and drinks.

A few things I learned during the tastings:

• Olive oil tastings often use red or blue tasting glasses because color doesn’t correlate to quality–harvest time and technique can affect color but not necessarily taste.
• Olive oil should be tasted slightly warmed to bring out all the flavors. A high-quality oil should taste peppery in the back of your throat and might make you cough slightly.
• To properly taste olive oil, you should sip it, leave it on your tongue and sip air through your mouth before swallowing.
• Cocoa-dusted truffles use the cocoa on the outside to help intensify the aroma at first bite.

I was really struck by how pure and rich really high-quality milk chocolate can taste, especially as someone who prefers dark chocolate. I left feeling inspired to make something that could showcase the olive oil I tried and immediately thought of one of my favorites from the olive oil cake bake off.

Swapping a little over 40% of the flour in America’s Test Kitchen’s olive oil cake for buckwheat flour gives this cake a nutty flavor that pairs so well with the chocolate ganache. As a gluten-free flour, buckwheat flour makes for a slightly more tender crumb in what is already a very finely-crumbed, plush cake. To me, this is a dream cake texture and would be the perfect finish to a dinner party or brunch!

Ingredients

This olive oil cake is super easy to make with just a few pantry staples.

• Olive oil: This is the main source of fat and flavor in the cake. Make sure to use an olive oil that you like the taste of–we sampled Toscano PGI extra virgin olive oil from Italy, Priego de Cordoba PDO from Spain and Chania Kritis PGI from Greece at the event and all would be great choices!
• Eggs: I always bake with large eggs; you can use eggs cold from the fridge.
• Buckwheat flour: Using a portion of buckwheat gives this cake a fun speckled appearance and nutty flavor.
• All-purpose flour: All-purpose flour in combination with buckwheat flour is crucial to provide structure since buckwheat flour doesn’t contain any gluten.
• Granulated sugar: This works to sweeten the cake (of course!) and contributes to a tender crumb.
• Milk: You can use any type of milk here–I used whole milk, but 2% or an alternative milk would also work.
• Dark chocolate: I used a 70% chocolate for this ganache. You can use any percentage of chocolate you like–use milk chocolate for a sweeter, lighter ganache and a higher cacao percentage for a darker, more bitter ganache. I recommend considering a Belgian chocolate for an exceptionally smooth and rich experience.
• Dry milk powder: Any fat percentage of milk powder will work. This is optional as it will make the ganache slightly grainier in texture. However, I like the additional flavor toasted milk powder adds to the ganache.

How to make this olive oil cake

Make ahead and storage

This cake can be made a day ahead and stored at room temperature, wrapped well. Frost right before serving.

Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days. I recommend letting the cake sit at room temperature for 10-15 minutes before enjoying!