I’m so glad olive oil is finally getting its due in baked goods in the U.S. Last year, an olive oil cake from Little House Confections when viral for their “bomb-ass olive oil cakes,” but a little old place called Maialino in New York was doing it long before they were (and I suspect olive oil-producing/focused countries have been doing it even longer…).
I’ve been consuming food content in some from or other—either cooking shows, blogs, cookbooks, restaurants, and social media–since fifth grade, when I used to hurry home after school to watch Giada de Laurentiis and Rachael Ray. Shockingly, I always skipped over Barefoot Contessa in the mid-afternoon line-up. I would never now! Even more surprisingly, I could never get into the PBS cooking shows that I am now a dedicated, if not obsessed, follower of. All of this to say that I first stumbled on Maialino on Unique Eats (please, bring this show back!) long before I saw the version on which this recipe is based from David Leibovitz.
This muffin version has a hit of orange from zest, juice, and Orange Marnier. Because the olive oil flavor comes through, use something light and delicate versus grassy and bitter—I like this version from Enzo Olive Oil, which is excellent for any baked goods containing olive oil and great for drizzling as a finishing oil on something in which you don’t want the olive oil flavor to overpower.As opposed to butter, olive oil is liquid at room temperature, so it helps keep the crumb very moist and delicate. These stay fresh several days on the counter. If you’d like to skip the booze, you can substitute with additional orange juice. Whatever you do, don’t skip the Fiori di Sicilia—an extract that brings vanilla and citrus notes to anything you add it to. You’ll soon find yourself sneaking it into any citrusy baked good like me.
I’ve starting using a trick I learned from somewhere (á la Shirley Corriher) to bake your muffins at a higher temperature than recipes usually called for to get a beautiful dome on top. I generally either preheat the oven to 400°, then lower the temperature to 350° when the muffins go in, or I have started baking the muffins at 400° for the full bake time (however, if you’re converting another recipe to do this, you’ll need to reduce the baking time).
Time to host a brunch party, right?
[tasty-recipe id=”43784″]
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