slothinscrubs

For my best friend’s birthday, I wanted to make her a cake that felt very her.

She loves chocolate-covered oranges. She does not like desserts that feel like sugar for the sake of sugar. So instead of going the classic chocolate-orange route, I decided to overthink it (duh) and try to build a cake around balance instead.

After a couple of hour-long iPad planning sessions (as one does), I landed on this:

A layered cake with two distinct flavors.
Chocolate olive oil cake on top.
Citrus olive oil cake on the bottom.
Tart, nutty, rich things in between.

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the structure (because i care)

The goal was contrast. Sweet with salty with savory. Decadent but not heavy. I wanted this cake to make you THINK.

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the cake layers

🍊 citrus olive oil cake

Based on the Maialino olive oil cake from Food52, with some edits to keep things lighter and brighter.

My tweaks:

• Used Cointreau instead of Grand Marnier, and halved the amount (purely an inventory-related tweak)
• Reduced the sugar by ½ cup
• Added 2 tablespoons orange zest
• Used mostly freshly squeezed orange juice, plus a little store-bought to make up the volume

This layer was my favorite. The flavor and texture were perfect.

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🍫 chocolate olive oil cake

Loosely inspired by the Butternut Bakery chocolate olive oil cake. “Loosely” is doing a lot of work here.

What I changed (sorry):

• Used granulated sugar, only 1 cup total
• Did 1 cup cocoa powder + ¼ cup melted dark chocolate
• Only ½ cup flour
• Used 4 eggs (I don’t have a defense for this)
• ¾ cup olive oil (🤑)
• Skipped the sour cream entirely — I don’t subscribe to the sour cream in cake ideology. It only makes them dense and taste a little weird.
• Used about ⅓ cup boiling water, because ½ cup felt like too much.

Lowkey I barely followed the recipe, but the result was chocolatey, moist, and not overly sweet — exactly what I wanted sooo.

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the fillings (time to get funky)

salted tahini pudding

This is the anchor flavor. Nutty, savory-leaning, and some salt to cut the sweetness.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 tbsp cornstarch
• Big pinch salt (to taste)
• ¼ cup sugar
• Splash of maple syrup
• ¼ cup tahini
• 1 egg yolk
• ½ tbsp butter
• ½ tsp vanilla

Method:

1. Whisk ⅛ cup milk with cornstarch and set aside (I warm it for ~30 seconds right before using).
2. In a saucepan, heat remaining milk, sugar, salt, and tahini until steaming (not boiling).
3. Temper the egg yolk with some of the hot mixture, then add everything back to the pan.
4. Add cornstarch slurry and cook over medium, whisking constantly, until thick.
5. Remove from heat, stir in butter and vanilla (and more salt if needed).
6. Chill until set.

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raspberry layer

This one’s intentionally simple.

Just raspberries + honey, cooked down to remove excess water.
I wanted the tartness to cut through the tahini and keep things from tipping too sweet.

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dark chocolate ganache

Equal parts dark chocolate and heavy cream.
No notes. It did what it needed to do.

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brown butter swiss meringue buttercream

This frosting is the reason I keep baking cakes.

Nutty, silky, not overly sweet, and sooo worth the extra steps.

Ingredients:

• 3 large egg whites
• ¾ cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temp, divided
• 3–4 tbsp milk powder (a fun trick that takes brown butter to the next level)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ¼–½ tsp salt
• ½ tsp lemon juice or white vinegar

1. toast the milk powder

• 300°F oven
• Thin layer on a baking sheet
• Toast 4–5 minutes until golden (watch it closely)

2. brown the butter

• Brown ⅓ cup butter in a light pan until nutty and golden
• Stir in toasted milk powder
• Chill until solid but still soft

3. heat egg whites + sugar

• Double boiler setup
• Whisk until 175°F or sugar is fully dissolved

4. whip the meringue

• Whip until stiff peaks
• Bowl should feel cool before adding butter

5. add the butter

• Add brown butter mixture first
• Then remaining butter, chunk by chunk
• If it curdles, keep going. It always comes back.

6. finish

• Add vanilla + salt
• Switch to paddle on low
• Add lemon juice or vinegar
• Mix 5–10 minutes until glossy and smooth

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assembling the cake (scawy)

I froze the cake layers for about an hour before assembling, which helped a lot with stability. I also chilled the buttercream just slightly (just. slightly.) because Swiss meringue buttercream is extremely sensitive and will punish you if you’re careless.

Even with that, the assembly was… stressful. The fillings were on the looser side, and that doesnt really bode well for getting four layers of cake to stack on one another. My girl was slipping and sliding, but we persevered– with a slight tilt.

If I were to do this again (and I will), I’d change the order a bit:

• Assemble the cake with the fillings
• Pipe a buttercream border around the edges
• Chill the cake before even attempting a crumb coat
• Crumb coat
• Chill again
• Then do the final frosting layer

This time, I assembled the cake with the fillings and crumb-coated it, then chilled it overnight and did the final frosting the day I gave it to her. It worked, but it was not the calmest experience. Because of my difficulties with the slippery fillings, I feared I was going to be cutting into a collapsed cake…but she was gorg.

For decoration, I wrapped fresh flower stems in plastic wrap before inserting them into the cake and paired them with orange slices. This was my first time trying this style of decoration, and I was obsessed. I love when cakes look organic.

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i ❤ over-intellectualizing baking

This was the most challenging cake I’ve ever taken on, but also the best cake I’ve ever made.

The flavors worked exactly how I hoped they would. I knew people were skeptical going in, but everyone seemed surprised in a good way — especially the birthday girl, which is really the only opinion that mattered hehe.

I really love being able to build flavors around what I know about people. It feels like an entirely separate skill of baking that isn’t talked about.

I can’t wait to have the time to make this again.
Maybe chocolate banana instead of orange. We’ll see.

A reminder that overthinking can sometimes be a love language.

— sloth in scrubs 🦥