Grapefruit Olive Oil Cake

cake and a check in

My heart is breaking for the ongoing devastation in LA. Please consider donating to Mutual Aid LA, World Central Kitchen, or Baby2Baby for fire relief. There are also innumerable GoFundMes for families that lost absolutely everything. Please feel free to share any organizations in the comments of this post as well.

Is it too early for a state of the sub? I’ve been at this for a few months now and wanted to check in with you all. How are we feeling these days? What sorts of recipes and features would you like to see here? Do you want to hear more in depth about recipe development or cookbook writing? Should I go live for a little cook-a-long? More easy dinners or more baking? What little somethings would make your days brighter? I’m all ears. Let me know in the comments. 

I am so grateful for you all and appreciate every single subscriber. If you are a free subscriber, please consider upgrading to get access to the archive of recipes, my cookie ebook, and more.

In the meantime, here is a bright and sunny grapefruit cake, with a hint of sweet orange zest to balance out the pleasant bitterness of grapefruit. This cake also makes use of butter (for flavor) and oil (for moisture), yogurt (for tanginess and more moisture), and a grapefruit and olive oil glaze that is sweet, a little bit bitter, and a little bit savory.

I first tried olive oil glaze on a pumpkin cake in my book Snacking Cakes and I loved the unctuous texture and earthy flavor olive oil added to a simple powdered sugar glaze that can be a little one-note. Make this over the weekend and enjoy it for days. This makes a generously sized loaf, so make sure to use a big loaf pan. If the batter is touching the rim of your pan, scoop a little bit out and bake it on the side in a muffin tin or ramekin. 

I also like to flip this cake out of the pan and glaze the bottom. Wild, I know. I find the square edges of the bottom of the loaf very pleasing, but you can glaze either side.

a moment of glaze zen