The Best Citrus Olive Oil Cake

Marge (00:00:07) - Welcome back, my friends. This is an episode not to miss. We are doing a citrus olive oil cake that you are going to love. Welcome to Bite Me. The show about edibles where I help you take control of your high life. I'm your host and certified Gonger Marge and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here. And thank you for joining me today. Yes, a fresh new episodes for you guys. And thank you for joining me. If this is your first time, your first episode, I hope you enjoy it and that you are inspired to try something new in your kitchen. And if you've been listening for a while, thank you for being here and making this all possible because obviously I would be sweating in my office without you because yes, while I did do a lovely rearrange of my office only a few days ago, I can't really keep the windows open this time of year because everybody's going to cut their fucking lawn. Every time I go to record an episode or they're cutting the lawn or whipper snipping or there's somebody up the street doing concrete work or whatever the case might be, it always seems to happen right when I want to record, So I have to close all the windows.

Marge (00:01:12) - And of course with the windows open, that means we're not using the air conditioning and I get to sweat in my office. So these are the things that podcasters do for you. Now, of course, first world problems, that is, as I listed myself, say, this is definitely first world problems. I am blessed to have a lovely house to live in and a lovely neighborhood. And if the worst of my problems is the fact that when I sit down to record this podcast episode for you folks who enjoy that, somebody happens to decide at the same time they need to cut their lawn, well, those are good problems to have other good problems to have weed words. This segment I started a little while ago and every so often I get a fresh new message about somebody who has a weed word that they would love to share. You can share those with me via a speak pipe or the podcast hotline is I like to call it, or by Instagram or by email, whichever way you prefer.

Marge (00:02:11) - The podcast hotline is pretty nice because I get to hear your voice and then I can reply via voice to and I can drop that audio right into this episode. But I digress. This week's Weed Word comes from Kennedy, I believe over on Instagram, and this 1st May not be new to y'all, but it is one that I actually do like to use occasionally myself. And it is weed. Weed. I'm not sure how you all pronounce that, but it's o uid and I have seen that quite a bit on Instagram in particular because that's where, that's the social media platform that I happen to be most active on. But I have seen that quite a bit because people are trying to circumvent the algorithm. I guess I shouldn't say, I guess I know Instagram and Facebook are not particularly. A cannabis friendly, shall we say. That's putting it lightly. And for a while there, weed was the word that people were using to avoid getting flagged or banned or shadow banned or whatever the case might be.

Marge (00:03:10) - I still think Bite Me the show about edibles or bite bite. My podcast is Shadow Banned, but that was the word that they were using to sort of circumvent that whole thing. Now, I think perhaps the algorithm or the powers that be on these social platforms have gotten wise to that, and I've seen that less and less and people are having to get creative and find other things. But that one does have this sort of, I don't know, is it hoity toity, bougie, high class kind of connotation to weed? It's kind of fun to say. So thank you for sharing that one. Kennedy I appreciate it. If you have your weed word, don't be afraid to share. I would love to talk about it on the show. And now the cannabis fact of the week. Now, I've been going into a lot of things you can make with hemp, because I find it endlessly fascinating that we have this highly renewable, very sustainable resource that now in particular in Canada, we have a whole industry popping up around the cultivation of cannabis and hemp.

Marge (00:04:20) - And of course in the States too, in places where it's legal and other places around the world as well. We have this such a sustainable plant material available and how are we not making more use of it and the things you can make from it? It's mind boggling. We've covered a lot already on past episodes. Talk about versatile. I'm going to focus on paper products today though, and of course we all know that you can make hemp paper. In fact, if I recall, that is one of the reasons for the that is one of the initial reasons rather for hemp or prohibition. Way back in was the 30s in the United States because people who owned paper mills were feeling threatened by the hemp industry because obviously, again, a highly sustainable, fast growing crop could come in and usurp the traditional paper producing. Ingredient of wood. That was a awkward way of saying all that stuff, but that, if I recall correctly, that was one of the reasons why cannabis got banned or prohibited in the first place is to protect the paper industry.

Marge (00:05:29) - And of course, since I have just banning hemp, they decide to ban the entire plant, which was dumb and shortsighted for myriad of reasons. But this paper product is not traditional writing paper. It is toilet paper. That's right. Toilet paper. Did you know you could make. Toilet paper out of hemp. I did not I have not seen it yet, although there's a couple of companies out there that are doing some interesting things. There's one I think called public goods. I'd have to look that up, but I'm not really sure what they're using because I do know some places have used bamboo as toilet paper. And again, that's another very sustainable crop as well. I'm not sure I don't know much more about it than that. But they see here on this website Ministry of hemp.com. I'll link to the article specifically because it just lists a whole bunch of things you can make with hemp, but toilet paper creates a massive amount of paper waste, unsurprisingly, and people in the US create more tp waste than almost anyone else.

Marge (00:06:28) - I'm pretty sure Canada is not that far behind when you take into consideration the population differences. So why should we be using trees for this? Great question. Unfortunately, nobody is mass producing hemp toilet paper yet in the US, but a recent investigation found some brands for sale on the international marketplace. Alibaba. It's probably only a matter of time before hemp toilet paper makes its way into the US in a big way. In addition to its environmental benefits, hemp toilet paper is also soft and strong. The fibers of the hemp plant are naturally durable and absorbent, making it effective and comfortable choice for bathroom tissue. Again, as it says here, biodegradable, compostable. So it's eco friendly. And of course, the reduction in the environmental impact because they can probably use waste product from the cannabis industry perhaps, or just be growing the fast growing hemp plant for this particular purpose. This article actually goes into quite a bit of different article that I found about hemp toilet paper, So I might link to that as well because that's kind of interesting, but I haven't really seen anybody who's actually making it yet.

Marge (00:07:30) - And if I find any, I'll link to those in the show notes. And now on to this week's recipe, which I am really looking forward to share because who doesn't love cake? Like last week's asparagus soup with fennel that were shared with me from Chef Julie Hauser, although it is available on her website. So it wasn't necessarily an exclusive share, but this cake was also shared from the same chef. And I have an interview coming up with her. You'll be able to check that out very soon. And any time I get a recipe from a chef, I'd love to try it out because I'm not a professional chef. I'm someone who likes to cook. But that doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. It just means that I have been forced to cook, to feed my family so they don't die for a number of years now. Now, most of those people have left this house and none of them ever suffered food poisoning at my hand. And I do enjoy the process probably a little bit more now that I am older and the kids are older and I'm not having to cook for the purposes of sustaining life for a bunch of picky child eaters.

Marge (00:08:35) - And those of you who are in that phase of life right now, I feel for you because it can be a difficult, never ending, repetitive task. I do love to get recipes from cooks and or from professional chefs, rather, because they usually inspire me. And in the end, by using a lot of these recipes, over time, I've really increased or improved my skills in the kitchen. So when I do go to make something, as in this recipe will be a perfect example of that. When I'm confronted with challenges, shall we say, I can overcome. Now, one of the things I really did like about this recipe is it just happened to be happenstance that the recipe used Lauren Oil's ingredients. I've had Heidi on the show from Lauren Oils and she talks about the many ways that you can use their products to improve your own cooking and baking. So I was so happy to see them here because I happen to have some of those things in my pantry as well and happy to make use of them.

Marge (00:09:29) - And I do recommend you check out that podcast if you haven't already listened to it, because Lauren Oils is one of those great companies that is supportive of the cannabis space and people working in the cannabis industry. And I love to see that because we don't get enough of that these days. I think Now I also got a new device sent to me from Levo, and if you're not familiar with Levo, I use it to infuse the oil for this particular recipe. And they sent me a new machine to try and enjoy and I've been testing it out and a D carbs and infuses and it looks like a cool like countertop coffee maker almost, which I really like. And it comes with a whole bunch of colors and it does do smaller batches from my experience so far. But I have found that sometimes I want to infuse specific things for specific edibles and I'm really wanting to play around a lot more now with I've had so many chefs on the show who talk about terpenes and food pairing and all those kind of thing, and I want to start getting more into that.

Marge (00:10:25) - So sometimes smaller batches seems to make more sense. And any time you have something that helps, you sort of set it and forget it, it just makes it easier to incorporate that into your life. So I am hopefully going to have a video for this up on my website for this episode page soon, so check that out. But I did use this device to infuse this oil for this recipe because this recipe uses quite a bit of olive oil. And I did a CBD. Charlotte's Angel cultivar for this olive oil is what I use to infuse it. That was sent to me from my friend temple grower. He is he grows beautiful weed and he sent me his CBD Charlotte's Angel before and I often like to just vape that in my dry her vaporizer as well. I often do that during the day because I don't consume too much THC during the day. I just find that it totally derails my progress and I have lots of things to do. But that CBD, Charlotte's Angel is really nice and he really knows his stuff.

Marge (00:11:30) - I also did an episode with him where we talk about concentrates. If that's something that you're interested in and making your own concentrates, I'll link to that in the show notes as well. And it's funny, he sent me a note with that. I mean, he sent me some other stuff too, but a note with the CBD, Charlotte's Angel saying that it was mids so perfect for using in infusions, which is exactly what I did. One of the reasons I did this cake with a CBD instead of a THC infusion, which is what I would be more which I do more often is when you make a whole cake, sometimes you want to be able to share it with other people in your household. And I am pretty much the only one at this point in time that likes to imbibe in the THC and actually ended up with two cakes. You could do a THC icing for one and not for the other if you're so inclined. And so this recipe was written as a plant based creation, and I have to admit that I cheated a little bit here because it called for a flax based egg substitute.

Marge (00:12:21) - And my daughter does run a vegan Gluten-Free restaurant. So I am familiar with the power of flax and how it can create a very egg like texture. But I have flax in the cupboard, but not enough to. I don't even know if flax based egg substitute is really, if you had to get something specific for that. But I did not use that. I it was equivalent to four eggs, it said so I just used the four eggs. It also called for a plant based milk. She preferred cashew at room temperature. And of course I didn't have that handy either. And I was out of cashews when I made this. I often have cashews and almonds and other things in the cupboard and if you really need to in a pinch, you can just make your own because pretty much it's cashews and water. You can do the cashew cream, which I did for last week's episode. Cashew milk is very much more water. You add more water to make it more of a milky consistency. Of course, I was out of cashews, so I was forced to use milk.

Marge (00:13:13) - The outrage. I always have milk in the fridge because I live with my mother in law and she likes to have milk in her tea. So we buy milk pretty much just for that purpose. Although I have been experimenting with making cottage cheese my sous vide as well, and that requires whole milk. And that cottage cheese is actually fantastic. But more about that another time. Did using making these substitutions make a difference? First, I thought that it might have, but now that I've enjoyed it for a couple of days, I really don't think it made much of a difference in a pinch. Sometimes you have to work with what you've got. It called for a Lorrain Oil orange oil, which I did not have. I use lemon oil instead, but I consider I considered it okay because of course, the recipe also calls for the zest, freshly grated zest of lemon and orange. And it also called for vanilla. The funny thing is, when I when I reviewed this recipe, it called for this Lauren oils orange oil and for the.

Marge (00:14:08) - L.L.Bean didn't actually say where to put them in the instructions part of the recipe. So I kind of had to make it up as I went. And I've been I've cooked long enough to think that I could manage to figure that out. I just put the lemon oil in with the olive oil. And then when the when I put in the milk, that's when I added the vanilla as well. And it also didn't call for any olive oil either. And Chef Julie Hauser, who created this recipe, is the CEO and founder of Flower Pharma. And they make this lovely line of of culinary infused culinary oils. I have the the hemp based ones in my cupboard. So I did use some of the orange cardamom oil just to add a little extra depth, I suppose, along with the CBD oil that I used. And I didn't call for a whole cup of oil, so I didn't use all the infused oil because that seemed like it was a bit of overkill. So yes, I used the olive oil, orange, cardamom, the CBD oil and regular olive oil in place of the one cup of olive oil you're supposed to use because she doesn't list anywhere in here where to put this olive oil or like where to use the infused stuff.

Marge (00:15:20) - So you kind of I mean, you also realize she's assuming that her audience and the people that are using her recipes are smart enough to figure that out, too. Now, I have to say, I did fuck it up a little bit, though. So even though I'm making substitutions and adding things in when it's not being instructed to do so and you know, you're kind of flying by the seat of your pants a little bit, which is kind of what you're always doing whenever you're following a recipe because there's so many variables can can change the the overall outcome, but the milk's that it needs to be at room temperature. So I measured it and left it on the counter. And it never occurred to me, like I measured out one and a half cups instead of 1.25 cups or one and a quarter cups. I don't know why I did that. I don't know what it was in my brain that had in my mind one and a half cups. So I didn't realize it until I already put the milk in.

Marge (00:16:02) - And I looked at the recipe and I was like, Well, fuck, Margaret, what are you. What are you doing? Yes. Sometimes I call myself my full first name. Margaret Actually, my full first name is Mary Margaret. Fun fact. But to compensate, I added a little more flour. In the end, I added about a quarter of a cup because I felt like the batter was pretty liquidy. I didn't seem to really make much of a difference, actually. There's always wiggle room, isn't there? The citrus really did shine through in the cake, and when I first tried it after it was done, I let it cool on the rack. I mean, this cake is made the way any other cake is made. You preheat your oven, you prepare your pans, you put your dry ingredients together, and then in your electric mixer, you add your sugar and eggs and your zest, and then you slowly drizzle in the oil. And this is where you put in the oil, if you have it, or your infused oil along with your regular oil.

Marge (00:16:51) - And then you add your milk and actually called for lemon juice as well. And then you add in your dry ingredients, pour in the pans, put in the oven, you know, you know the whole drill when I completely cooled them. I couldn't help but think I felt was like a little dry in my opinion. Now I realized, of course, I don't really follow the recipe exactly, and I made a few different. As I've already discussed, I made it a bit of a choose your own adventure as far as the rest following the recipe. When the next day I felt like it was so much better. It's almost like it needed that extra day to really have all. I don't know what it was. It was so much better. When I first came out of the oven, it was completely cool. This is a little dry, but then the next day I'm having it and I'm like, This is really good. And what I did end up doing, and this I got from when I made that chocolate coffee cake from Chef Lucas.

Marge (00:17:41) - I have made that a few times now because I really like it. And he's just like, cut it into pieces and put it in the fridge. And even though this was made with CBD and I don't really have to worry about the content of THC and getting myself to high and all the rest of that kind of thing, I really like the bite sized pieces of cake. There's something about it. It's just it really helps me keep my sweet tooth in check. And it's for me, it's, it's perfect. So I took the cake and ended up with two cakes. In this particular one, I did call for a nine inch pan cake pan. Sometimes I prefer square, I find, but I happen to have round ones that have been in my cupboard for God knows how long. I always remember my mom telling me about nine inches is a hand span, so if it's around that it's close enough. That's sort of my benchmark. So I'm pretty sure it's nine inches. I haven't actually measured it or anything, but it made two.

Marge (00:18:33) - And sometimes I like to square better because then when you're cutting, you don't end up with those oddly shaped end pieces, which if it has THC in, it, can make your your calculations a little less accurate when you're trying to figure out THC per piece. But when it's rounded, it doesn't really matter. In this particular instance with with the CBD. I mean, not that it doesn't matter. You don't you can overconsume CBD to probably make you feel drowsy or something like that. But I cut it up into little pieces and then I put it into containers because it said it would keep in your fridge for up to one week and anything left over. I'm going to pop into the freezer. But it just really is nice to have those little pieces of cake. And of course, because it's CBD, I can have a few more than I might otherwise, but. I don't know. There's something about that. And then if you wanted to make a frosting, say you wanted to, like, kick it up a notch, you could do the frosting.

Marge (00:19:20) - This is what I was thinking earlier. You could do the frosting and have it separate and almost put it on like you're buttering toast or something like that. And then that way you can keep the cake is CBD for yourself and for whoever else is enjoying it in your household. But then you have your special frosting, huh? How's that for innovative? I kind of like that idea. Although this cake is really good without frosting too. It might be nice with something like light and creamy or even seriously as well, but on its own, it's really nice. It did call for sprinkling sugar on the top before you put it into the oven, which I did do because I happen to have this jar of turbinado sugar in my cupboard that's been there for a very long time and it's just like a really chunky sugar. So I figured that would look nice or that would do well on the top, but I haven't really noticed anything. But in any case, in the end, this cake was delicious. And if you like citrus, you're really going to enjoy this one.

Marge (00:20:17) - You can infuse it however you want. Just be mindful of the amounts. And if you're using CBD and you want to up the ante a little bit, make a nice icing for it and add it. And of course you don't have to cut up into pieces like I did, but that's how I have been enjoying my cakes lately because Marge has a sweet tooth and some days that is the recipe for this week. So I hope if you give it a try, let me know how you like it. Let me know how you found it. Let me know how you infused it because you have options here. And of course, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with somebody you care about. Sharing is caring and let's help the show become more discoverable amongst a sea of celebrity podcasts. And just because they're a celebrity doesn't mean it's any good. I listen to a few. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I've listened to a few celebrities. I'm like, Yeah, it's not that interesting.

Marge (00:21:06) - Sometimes celebrities aren't that interesting. Of course you can talk to me email, podcast hotline over on Instagram, even if you message me on Facebook, I will get it eventually or Twitter. I do hop on there from time to time. I'm just not as active over there, but I will get it. And you can always send me your weed word. And if you want to stay up to date with news events, giveaways, I do have a giveaway going right now. Help me keep these podcast episodes timeless by signing up for the newsletter because I can do the more timely stuff over on the newsletter and to keep those episodes nice and clean. Finally, consider using the products and services that I recommend on the market recommends Page. I'm your host, Marge, and until next week, my friends stay high.