`Sweet Role for Olive Oil - Olive Oil Times
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Sweet Role for Olive Oil

By Laura Rose
Jan. 10, 2011 08:06 UTC
Summary Summary

Olive oil has tran­si­tioned from being an exotic ingre­di­ent to a cen­tral com­po­nent in gourmet desserts, with top chefs incor­po­rat­ing it into their sig­na­ture dishes to cre­ate a new trend in sweet fin­ishes. From olive oil and orange zest cake at Hearth restau­rant in New York to olive oil gelato at Babbo in New York and olive oil sponge cake at the Huntington Hotel in Los Angeles, olive oil has become the sig­na­ture con­fec­tionary ingre­di­ent of the era, even mak­ing its way into Parisian cui­sine.

Not so long ago, olive oil was an exotic ingre­di­ent in New World kitchens, lit­tle under­stood and spar­ingly used for occa­sional for­ays into Italian din­ner courses, but all of that has changed rapidly as olive oil has been rec­og­nized for its health ben­e­fits and its vir­tu­oso qual­i­ties. And while top qual­ity extra vir­gin is now essen­tial in any decent restau­rant, per­haps the full embrace of olive oil is most poignantly revealed in its sur­prise role: as dessert. In this respect, it is not merely a sup­port­ing actor either. The sub­tle com­plex­ity of EVOO, with fruity and nutty hints, has become the star of gourmet desserts, defin­ing a new trend in sweet fin­ishes.

Olive oil has always played a part in desserts in the places where you might expect — in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, where olive oil is part of the cul­ture and a kitchen fun­da­men­tal. For the French and American palates, how­ever, desserts usu­ally involved a lot of but­ter. Now with the grow­ing taste for high qual­ity, fresh extra vir­gin olive oil, it’s maybe not such a sur­prise that top chefs have embraced the fla­vor as a cen­tral and sur­pris­ing dessert ingre­di­ent. With an over­all trend towards salty sweet desserts like salted caramel, olive oil’s slide into dessert ter­ri­tory seems almost obvi­ous.

At New York’s famed Hearth restau­rant, renowned for its exu­ber­ant twists on tra­di­tional, robust cook­ing, the olive oil and orange zest cake that helped spark the trend has become its sig­na­ture dish. Pastry chef Safia Osman uses Spoletoextra vir­gin olive oil for its par­tic­u­larly fruity notes, and serves it with sea­sonal fruit com­pote to keep things cur­rent with this con­sis­tent favorite.

From star-chef Mario Batali’s olive oil gelato at his acclaimed New York restau­rant Babbo, to the Catalan olive oil sponge cake served with olive oil ice cream and topped with an olive oil sablée for good mea­sure at the ele­gant Huntington Hotel in Los Angeles, the fla­vor is tak­ing over as the sig­na­ture con­fec­tionary ingre­di­ent of the era. Even Paris’s cur­rent cook­ing sen­sa­tion — the young chef from Chicago, Daniel Rose, is bring­ing the American trend to his adopted city, end­ing his meals at the beloved Spring restau­rant (for which there is cur­rently a six-month wait­ing list) with olive oil ice cream.

Often these epi­curean delights are pre­pared with other ingre­di­ents bor­rowed from the savory cab­i­net. Rosemary, thyme, and basil com­bine as beau­ti­fully with olive oil in ice creams, cakes, and choco­late dishes as they do in more famil­iar fare, but in the world of desserts the result is refresh­ingly new. Clearly, this is olive oil’s moment in the sweet sun.

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