Winemaker's Grape Cake

This is recipe number two during Grape Week here at joandsue.blogspot.com. This recipe is more subtle than my Grape Cream Pie recipe that I blogged as our first recipe.

It is a very beautiful looking cake and using olive oil in the recipe certainly adds another level of flavour. If I had to choose one word to describe this cake it would be – sophisticated. I don’t usually use that word to describe food but it really fits here.

I went back and forth a million times, trying to decide whether to enter this recipe or the Grape Cream Pie as my official entry in the grape cooking contest. I decided on the pie simply because it had more “grape-iness” than this cake. I convinced my mother to enter this cake just to see how it would fare. Turns out it didn’t place in the top 3 but we did hear that everyone loved it. (Whew, glad I went with the pie!)

Winemakers Grape Cake

(Adapted from Martha Stewart)

 Ingredients

2 large eggs

2/3 cup white sugar

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup olive oil

1/3 cup Silk (Or could use milk)

½ tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 ½ cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp orange rind

Pinch of sea salt

1 cup grapes (seedless, small), stemmed and washed

Icing sugar for dusting

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Spray an 8 or 9 inch springform pan with cooking spray.

In large bowl, beat together eggs and sugar until thick and lemon coloured (about 3 mins). Add melted butter, olive oil, Silk, vanilla, and lemon juice. Mix well.

In medium bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, orange rind, and salt.

Beat dry ingredients into wet ingredients until just combined. Scrape down sides of bowl and mix briefly again. Allow to sit for 10 minutes.

Stir about3/4 of the grapes into the batter. Spoon batter into prepared pan. Smooth top with spatula.

Bake about 15 minutes. Sprinkle remaining grapes on top of cake.

Bake until the top is golden brown and toothpick inserted near center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. (Depending on what size pan you use you may have to cover cake with tinfoil to finish cooking without browning too much)

Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes. Run a knife around edge of pan. Remove sides of springform pan. Let cool on wire rack.

Slide a metal spatula under cake to remove from bottom of pan. Place on serving platter.

Dust with icing sugar. Cut into thin wedges.

Why it is called “Winemakers” Grape Cake I have no idea. It does make it sound fancier though so I decided to keep the name. It is a nice, dense, moist cake that would go very well with tea and coffee at lunch time or with a glass of wine after dinner.

There is a sneak peak at the next blog in one of the photos on this blog. Can you see what it is? If not, stay tuned for Grape Week blog number 3!