Garden cake

A beautiful lemon and olive-oil cake that's moist, full of flavour and topped with delightful flowers and rosemary.

Credit: Adam Liaw

• serves

  8

• prep

  15 minutes

• cook

  50 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

• 250 ml (1 cup) olive oil
• 250 g (1 cup) Greek yoghurt
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ lemon, juice and zest
• 450 g (3 cups) cake flour or plain flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting
• 360 g (1½ cups) caster sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• pinch of sea salt
• 1 tbsp finely chopped garden herbs like rosemary and thyme
• 125 g (1 cup) frozen blueberries
• 5 rosemary sprigs, to decorate
• 5-8 dried or fresh edible flowers such as marigolds or nasturtium flowers, pressed, to decorate, optional
• 3-4 tbsp honey, warmed

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 170ºC. Grease the base and sides of a 25-cm round cake tin with olive oil and line the base with baking paper.
2. Place the olive oil, yoghurt, eggs, vanilla, lemon juice and zest in a bowl and whisk until well combined.
3. Into a separate bowl, sift the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Sieve 2-3 times.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in two batches, stirring until just combined. Stir in the herbs.
5. Dust the frozen blueberries in a little extra flour, then shake off the excess and very gently fold through the batter, taking care not to break them up or colour the batter too much.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and decorate the top by gently pressing in the rosemary sprigs and pressed nasturtium flowers. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until the top is golden and a skewer withdraws clean. Stand the cake in the tin for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool.
7. Using a pastry brush, gently glaze the top of the cake with the honey, taking care not to agitate the herbs and flowers on top.

 

Photography by Adam Liaw.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.