Torta al Limone e Cioccolato & a Good Cookbook

Good morning.

Let's chat about olive oil cakes and cookbooks (for a change!).

You still haven't made an olive oil cake yet?

Why on earth not?

Don't be scared.

It is my favorite cake.

Whether it has raisins, oranges or nuts, it's always moist and special.

I always say: be careful which olive oil you use. It has to be a mild and a good one.

I choose Colavita extra virgin, because it's always reasonably priced and is my go to daily olive oil.
(I do not get paid to endorse them).

Ok, about the book.

I met Domenica Marchetti at Linda's Abruzzo party last winter and was instantly smitten with her cookbooks.
I made a ton of recipes from her soup book this winter and the Rustic Italian Cookbook is even better.

I've been keeping it a secret until I made at least 3 recipes in the book.

Well, this is #3. All of them easy and fabulous.
Truly my kind of weeknight cooking. I have over 20 recipes bookmarked and that's a lot.

So now for the cake.

This cake is SO GOOD.
It's weird, I know. Pairing lemon and chocolate?

Yes.

I love orange and chocolate, so why not lemon? Citrus and chocolate is a popular combo in Italy from what I have been told.

This cake also uses Greek yogurt. Hooray.

It was so simple to put together and was beautiful with a glass of Vin Santo.

We loved it.

Torta al Limone e Cioccolato (adapted from Rustic Italian by Domenica Marchetti):

Just a heads up: you will need 3 bowls for this recipe.

4 oz. of semi sweet chocolate, melted (I do mine in the microwave for 45 seconds, but you can use a double boiler if you prefer)

2 cups of flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp finely ground sea salt

1 cup of sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup Greek yogurt
3/4 cup of olive oil (a mild Italian one)

zest of a lemon
2 tbsp of lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and set aside.

In a second large bowl, beat the sugar with eggs and vanilla until pale and creamy.

Next add in the yogurt and olive oil to the sugar & eggs. Mix with a rubber spatula to combine.

Slowly add in the dry ingredients and incorporate to create a thick batter.

Now here's the hard part (not):
In a clean bowl (your third bowl), place 1/3 of the batter and combine with the melted chocolate.

In the bowl w/ the 2/3 remaining batter, add in the lemon juice and lemon zest.

So now you have 2 bowls of batter, one yellow, one brown. Got it?

Oil a 9" long loaf pan (I line mine with parchment paper always) and place big dollops of yellow and brown batter next to each other to fill the pan.

With a butter knife, swirl the brown into the yellow to combine the batters.

Bake 40-45 minutes at 350F.

Remove from the pan and place on a cooling rack for 30 minutes before serving.

SO GOOD!