Olive Oil Micro Mini Cakes

A couple of neighbors were coming over for afternoon tea so as a sweet treat I thought of creating something quick, easy, light yet tasty and small enough to hold and nibble on while having a chat.

Still in keeping with the lemon theme (flavor of the season, the tree is still bringing forth a lot of fruit), these olive oil cakes are made with very simple ingredients found in anyone's pantry, and mixed in a blender!

Recipe was based on this link I found here except I decreased the sugar.

Olive Oil Micro Mini Cakes with Lemon Zest and Thyme
1 scant cup white sugar
zest of 2 medium sized lemons
2 whole eggs
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (I used spanish EVOO, which is quite fruity)
2/3 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme

Icing:
3 tablespoons icing sugar
2 teaspoons melted butter
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Prepare a 12 muffin tray. In this instance I used a muffin pan with 24 small cups, lightly sprayed with oil (or buttered) and dusted with flour. Pre-heat oven to 180C.

zesty goodness

In a blender, pulse white sugar and lemon zest until combined. Add one egg at a time, pulsing after each addition.



Slowly add milk and olive oil, and pulse until emulsified.



In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients and thyme. Pulse half of the flour mixture into the wet ingredients, then add next batch. Do not overmix. It will be a thin batter.

Pour onto prepared tray and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the cakes are pulling away from the sides.

Whisk icing sugar, melted butter and lemon juice until smooth. Adjust ingredients accordingly to create an icing of pourable consistency (but not too thin).



When cakes are ready, let cool before drizzling the icing on top. Alternatively, dunk cakes into the icing and serve with either a pinch of lemon zest or some thyme leaves.

Serve with tea, or white wine, or bubblies

That's the micro mini cake sitting on a teaspoon :)