I’ll be the primary to confess that I don’t take pleasure in baking. My quick consideration span cannot deal with the precision it so usually calls for, plus I discover all-purpose flour (and the convenience with which it coats each floor in my kitchen) endlessly annoying. For that motive, you may not often discover me pulling out my mixing bowl set from the again of the cabinet to whip up a batch of cupcakes or cookies, or (shudder) one thing extra difficult like croissants or macarons—I will go away that to the professionals.

There may be, nonetheless, one very notable exception to my dangerous baking angle: Maialino’s Olive Oil Cake.

Members of the Meals52 neighborhood are in all probability properly acquainted with this cake. With roughly 568 critiques and numerous five-star scores, it shortly grew to become a favourite after it was first featured in Kristen Miglore’s Genius recipe column in 2014. (For individuals who hadn’t but come throughout an olive cake again then, she needed to assure that the cake under no circumstances resembled salad dressing; lately, no such assurances are wanted.)

“Discovering what turned out to be probably the most beloved Genius dessert of all time was a cheerful fluke,” Kristen instructed me lately. “Not like most different Genius Recipes, it hadn’t been revealed in a cookbook or wherever else. Our editorial crew simply beloved the olive oil cake at Maialino in New York Metropolis, not removed from our workplace, and we requested then-pastry chef Rachel Binder if she’d share the recipe. When she did, it was completely sized for a house kitchen and couldn’t have been less complicated to bake.” She added that this not often occurs (fortunate us!).

The cake’s effort-to-reward ratio has loads to do with why it is just about the one factor I’ll ever bake. Requiring simply two bowls, it’s nearly not possible to screw up. All it’s important to do is stir the moist components, stir the dry components, then mix ‘em and—voila—your cake batter is able to go within the oven.

Since it’s, properly, an olive oil cake, the kind of olive oil undoubtedly makes an impression (Kristen recommends one thing floral to enrich the citrus). Recent orange juice and zest are key; I sometimes use navel oranges, however blood oranges additionally work properly, and Meyer lemons could possibly be enjoyable. I’ve swapped in triple sec many instances in a pinch, however Grand Marnier offers you probably the most depth of taste. The precise baking half is equally foolproof: All it’s important to do is keep watch over it across the hour mark, and also you’ll know it is prepared as soon as a tester knife or toothpick comes out clear. In my oven, the cake takes about an hour and 20 minutes to prepare dinner by means of.

The ensuing cake is merely good.

The crust is a deep-deep golden brown and really crackly (it makes an exquisite sound if you slice by means of it). The crumb is extremely tender and wealthy, because of the oil—although “oily” is rarely a phrase I’ve heard used to explain this cake. And the style? Aromatic with citrus and simply the correct amount candy, it’s the perfect base for topping with something from whipped cream to fruit compote.

I’ve made this cake dozens of instances since discovering the recipe a number of years in the past—for birthdays, dinner events, and for no motive in any respect. One summer time, I made it 3 times within the span of two weeks. My boyfriend, who requests it usually, calls it “a cake for all events” and one which “really tastes higher the day after you bake it.” One reviewer wrote, “Threw this collectively final minute for the vacations and was a success, night time after night time, even three days later,” so I believe he is on to one thing. It needs to be famous that we do not even hassle ordering olive oil cake once we exit to eat anymore, since “they will solely disappoint compared,” he says.

All to say, that is the one cake I can rely on—and there is nothing sweeter than that.

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