One of my favorite recipes using extra-virgin Italian olive oil is in this citrus olive oil cake that I adapted from a recipe by Anne Quatrano in Food & Wine Magazine. I have always made this cake with a Ligurian olive oil, but I didn’t have any on hand, so I went to the market and found a bottle of Lucini premium select extra virgin olive oil, made from hand-picked olives in central Italy. Lucini is a brand I was familiar with but I stopped buying it because it was bottled in clear glass. Now it’s bottled in dark glass and you can buy an organic version, too. The oil is delightfully fruity.
The recipe calls for a 10-inch diameter round cake pan. A 9-inch pan is too small to accommodate this cake. I know it’s a nuisance to have to buy a pan you may not have, but I think you’ll want to make this cake many, many times. You can find 10-inch round cake pans online. One source is lacuisineus.com. I think you’ll be glad you bought one.