Baking Bouchon - Recipe 54 & 55: Olive Oil Cake & Parfaits

Did you hear me gasp?  I just realized that I skipped over a cake in the cookbook and went straight from Coffee Cakes to Olive Oil Cake.  Normally, this is not a big deal but I skipped RUM cake.  I'm pretty sure I need to rectify this pronto.

I'm combining the post for the Olive Oil Cake and the Parfaits because the cake itself is awfully simple and I'm not sure I'd be able to talk about it long enough to make a whole post on it.  Plus, the whole reason it's in the book is to make the parfaits.

This cake is a traditional butter cake with the butter replaced with olive oil.  Otherwise it's pretty simple - flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, sugar & milk which get baked in a quarter sheet pan.  You don't even have to refrigerate the batter!!!  Of course, once you bake it you have to freeze the cake in order to cut it out to make the parfaits.  You can't have everything.

As simple as the cake is, there are a lot of components to the parfait.

1.  Raspberry Jam

2.  Olive Oil Cake

3.  Strawberries

4.  Pastry Cream

5.  Buttercream (which gets combined with the pastry cream)

6.  Creme Fraiche (which I didn't have and substituted Plain Greek Yogurt)

These suckers are really pretty!  I made two of these in the original size for CA and I to enjoy for dessert.  As you know, I give away most of my baked goods and I had a hard time figuring out how to dispense of these.

The obvious choice was mini parfaits, but I wasn't sure how to package them the until I remembered that I had a bunch of disposable plastic shot glasses which someone brought to a party we threw a couple of years ago with a bottle of Jagermeister (don't ask).  They were the PERFECT!

CA was totally skeptical and kind of grumpy when I told him he was taking these to work.  He thought people would think they were weird and not eat them.  However, I made him take them anyway and also sent in plastic spoons to make it easier for his coworkers to enjoy them.  The feedback was unanimous - they loved them!  A couple of people commented that they were one of the best things he's ever brought in to share.

I agree that they were pretty awesome and would definitely make them again.  Of all things, I really liked the raspberry jam in the bottom of the cup.  It was nice and tart and balanced out all the cake and sweet pastry cream.

Enjoy!
Julie