Though I enjoy baking, it’s not something I do very often. My baking accoutrements are limited to a cookie sheet and a muffin pan, and I don’t even own an electric mixer. Moreover, knowing that the two of us will be on the hook to finish the entire dessert ourselves is often a deterrent enough. So more often than not, I end up saving dessert recipes for special occasions or instances where I know others will be able to help us enjoy the sweets.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Yogurt Loaf Cake

I remember seeing pictures of Rhianna’s extra virgin olive oil and yogurt loaf cake on her blog, and thinking what a brilliantly vibrant cake it was. I wanted to make something for Mack’s Grandma to help celebrate her birthday, and being a tea drinker, I thought the loaf would be a perfect afternoon accompaniment.

I’ve never made a cake using olive oil before, but I’ve read about the fruity flavour it can lend baked goods. However, I wasn’t able to discern a distinct flavour in my final product that I could attribute to the olive oil – nor was it wasn’t as bright as Rhianna’s cake. I also probably would have added some actual lime juice to the batter – the zest just didn’t lend enough citrus taste to the cake.

 Extra virgin olive oil and yogurt loaf cake

Still, much like other yogurt loaves, I found that it helped keep the cake fairly moist. Most importantly though – Mack’s Grandma liked it!

Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

I didn’t grow up eating rhubarb. It just wasn’t a part of my Mom’s repertoire, so my first encounter with rhubarb was fairly recent, incorporated into a dessert of some kind. I liked it well enough, but didn’t think much about it until our weekly visits to the City Market opened my eyes to how ubiquitous rhubarb is here. Several of the produce vendors offer it (Sundog Organics, Edgar Farms, and Riverbend Gardens, among others), and I knew I couldn’t just keep passing it by.

We picked up several of the pink-green stalks from Sundog Organics a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t yet have a recipe in hand, but I knew my family would be willing to sample whatever I made. Searching online, the vast majority of recipes I stumbled across featured rhubarb paired with strawberries, but I really wanted to find something that would allow the rhubarb to sing on its own. This rhubarb upside-down cake was it.

It was super-easy to make (as I am sure most upside-down cakes are), and though the recipe author claims it isn’t the most attractive dessert, I thought otherwise, between the pink hues and the flecks of orange scattered throughout (I will say that the photo below is terrible though…most things that I photograph in my parents’ yellow kitchen appear jaundiced).

Rhubarb upside-down cake

Although the rhubarb was a bit tart, the edge was taken off by a scoop of cold, sweet ice cream. Amanda also suggested that cinnamon would be a worthy addition to the cake batter. I do think I will make this again though – it’s hard to resist using seasonal ingredients when they’re so readily available!