Chocolate Olive Oil Cake with Espresso Ricotta Cream

Serves 8 (makes 1 x 22 cm cake)

Time 1 hour

Ingredients

150ml extra virgin olive oil

50g cocoa powder, sifted

1 tbsp vanilla extract

150g almond meal

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Pinch salt

½ cup (125g) coconut sugar

3 eggs

Espresso Ricotta Cream

350g ricotta

100g cream cheese, softened 

3 tbsp strong espresso coffee, cooled

½ tsp cinnamon

2 tbsp coconut sugar

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle

Dark chocolate block for garnish

Method

To make the cake, preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease and line a 22 cm springform pan with baking paper.

Sift cacao powder into a bowl, and whisk in 125ml boiling water until you have a thin paste. Stir in the vanilla extract and set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, Combine almond meal, bicarbonate soda and salt.

Beat eggs, sugar and olive oil in a stand mixer until the mixture is thick and pale, this will take about 3 minutes. Fold in the cacao mixture and the dry ingredients.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the edges of the cake start to come away from the side of the pan, but the centre is still a little damp but not too wet. Cool cake in the cake tin on a wire rack.

While the cake is cooling, make the espresso ricotta cream. Place ricotta, cream cheese, cinnamon and coconut sugar into a stand mixer and beat for 3 minutes until smooth and creamy. Slowly add the cooled coffee and beat for 2 minutes or until combined.

To serve, spread the espresso cream over the cake and drizzle it with extra virgin olive oil or grate it with chocolate block for garnish.