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Just before Thanksgiving, I decided to make one of my favorite cakes, Giada De Laurentiis’s orange-ricotta pound cake, substituting oil for the butter. It worked beautifully and best of all, the cake materialized in one bowl very quickly.
This made me wonder which other cakes made with butter could be given the same treatment? I haven’t experimented extensively, but I suspect nearly all. I have long loved the flavor and texture of cakes made with oil, olive or otherwise, but I especially love making cakes with olive oil this time of year. Here’s why:
- No need to wait for butter to soften. If you have a microwave, softening butter is likely no big deal. If you don’t, it’s a pain in the rear. This time of year, butter doesn’t soften quickly on the countertop, so other tricks must be employed.
- No need to beat butter. Many cake recipes call for beating butter till it’s light and fluffy. No such instruction is called for with oil-based cakes.
- Speed. Without having to soften butter or beat it, oil-based cakes come together very quickly.
- Texture. This is a personal thing: I prefer (often) the texture of oil-based cakes.
- Longevity. In my experience, cakes made with oil keep longer, which is a boon this time of year, when anything that can be made ahead of time holds strong appeal. Often, too, the flavor of cakes made with oil improves over time.
This cake bakes for about an hour or until an instant-read thermometer registers about 200ºF. I love my Thermapen for testing cakes—I tend to underbake cakes and am perpetually disappointed when I cut into one only to find uncooked batter.
One-Bowl, Orange-Ricotta Pound Cake
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf
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Adapted from this Giada De Laurentis recipe, this version calls for oil in place of butter, and the whole thing is made in one bowl. This cake keeps well for days—tuck it in an airtight bag or container. It makes a beautiful gift—wrap it in parchment paper and tie it with baker’s twine. See visual here. Often I make this in three mini loaf pans to give as gifts.
Yield = 3 mini loaves or 1 standard (9 x 5 x 3-inch) loaf
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups whole-milk ricotta cheese
- 3/4 cup neutral oil, such as canola or vegetable
- 2 tablespoons orange-flavored liqueur such as Grand Marnier
- 1 1/2 cups (320 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- zest of 1 orange
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 cups (192 g) all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease one 9-by-5-by-3-inch loaf pan with butter or nonstick spray. Alternatively, grease three mini loaf pans.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and ricotta till blended. Add the oil and liqueur and whisk until blended. Add the sugar, salt, and zest, and whisk again to combine. Add the baking powder and whisk again to incorporate. Add the flour and use a spatula to incorporate until it is no longer visible.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan or pans and bake until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan, 50 to 60 minutes (or longer; about 35 minutes for mini pans). If you have an instant-read thermometer, it should register about 200ºF. Let the loaves cool completely in their pans, then turn out onto a rack. Do not wrap until completely cool.
- Category: Quick Bread
- Method: bake
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: quick bread, ricotta, orange, tea cake, loaf cake, breakfast, dessert, holiday, gifts
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
Susana Santistevan says
I made it! And I love it!
I live in Ecuador, south América.
Thanks
★★★★
alexandra says
Wonderful to hear this, Susana!
Andrea Jozefkowicz says
I made this with just orange juice and it was so good. Served warm with blueberry sauce and whip cream! And also substituted olive oil. Delicious!! Will make again.
★★★★★
alexandra says
Wonderful to hear this, Andrea!
Diane says
Can this recipe be baked in a mini cupcake pan? At what temperature and how long?
alexandra says
Sure! I haven’t tried, so I can’t give an exact time, but I would keep the temperature the same and start checking at 15 minutes or so? I would reference other recipes you’ve used in mini cupcake pans and see what they recommend.
Diane Hooper says
I made this in the mini cupcake tins, baked at 350 for 18 minutes. They turned out great. They are not brown on top but a little tan on the bottom but in a good way. Followed the recipe except used orange juice vs. liquor and added 1 teas. vanilla. I plan to freeze 3 per package for snacks.
I got 58 mini cupcakes out of the recipe and calculated approximately 67 calories per cupcake which isn’t too bad. Thanks!
★★★★★
alexandra says
Diane, amazing!! Wow, thanks so much for sharing all of this good info. So helpful for people. I would love to have a stash of these minis on hand … what a satisfying snack! Thanks again for writing.
Danya K says
I made this in a 9×11 inch cake pan as my loaf tins wouldn’t have accommodated the batter. Took around 1 hour 15 min to bake and surprisingly the top didn’t brown as much as the pictures. I’m queen of overbaking, however this turned out to be one of the best pound cake recipes. Never thought you could get something so scrumptious with just a few ingredients and 1 BOWL (talk about easy clean up!). I used a combination of light butter and EVOO. Added orange juice and lemon zest (out of orange). And finally added a cup of frozen blueberries. I think that’s what added the extra moisture hence the extra cooking time. Absolutely perfect!
★★★★
alexandra says
Amazing! Wonderful to hear all of this, Danya! I love the idea of blueberries here. Yum!
Kristine says
I made this today but I didn’t have ricotta tho. I had frozen European style small curd that I chopped in smaller pieces (it was really frozen) and the package had 13.6 ounces so I used all of it. I mixed it for a while and the curd came apart and combined nicely with the eggs. The dough was denser than yours (at least yours looks pretty runny) so I added fresh orange juice (from 1/2 orange) at the end but kept everything else the same. It turned out perfect! It is so good that even my I-don’t-like-pund-cakes husband liked it 🙂 win-win! Thank you for the recipe!
★★★★★
alexandra says
Wonderful to hear this, Kristine! So nice to know this can work with cottage cheese! Nice work improvising with the ingredients and using your judgement based on the visual appearance 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Kristine says
Thanks! You are my favorite! <3