how to: developing a recipe from "nothing"
using olive oil cake as an example!
hey hi hello!!
I’ve promised the follow up to part 1 of how to develop recipes for MONTHS. I know. I’m the worst I’m so sorry. But, I thought a lot about how I want to format this information. In the same way everyone has a different learning style, people also have different teaching styles. So for a while I was trying to just info dump all this shit from my brain onto paper of the digital age… a screen. I realize my teaching style is to show AND tell rather than just tell.
*This post has a few affiliate links, which if you click and purchase from I receive compensation at no additional cost to you. Sometimes the link also includes a few bucks off for you, a real win/win, if you ask me. I’m not here to aggressively peddle crap unto you, I still only link products I actually use, test with and enjoy*
So last month, on Tik Tok I started a little series where we developed a recipe together from “nothing”. But, nothing isn’t necessarily the truth. While I had no preset ingredients to work off of- I did have ratios. Using standard baker’s ratios & percentages will leave you with a perfectly fine baked good. It’s nothing you’ll deem the best _______ I’ve had. But, it’ll be the starting point to get there.
Different baked goods follow different ratios. To find the ratio for what you want to create Google is a great place to start. A book I recently picked up called Ratio: The simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking by Michael Ruhlman, it houses ratios for recipes- sweet and savory. As well as more examples of the ratios in action. I highly recommend picking up a copy. Another amazing resource filled with a food science baking to ratios is Baking Science by Dikla Levy Frances. This one dives deeper into what ingredients could potentially be plugged into each slot of the ratio. If you want to explore creating recipes out of thin air.. get these books! Knowing how to use these ratios really opens up your creativity to what you’re able to bake.
Back to it: In the first video of the series we bake an olive oil cake using a quick bread/cake ratio which is:
2 parts flour: 2 parts liquid: 1 part sugar: 1 part eggs: 1 part butter/fat
Using this ratio I then plugged in ingredients to each part. I added baking powder to give the cake rise, salt and vanilla for flavor and baked until done- nice and golden. 30 minutes later I had a half decent olive oil cake.
TEST 1:
225 grams All-Purpose flour
113 grams granulated sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
100 grams EVOO
240 grams whole milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
This is what the first version of the cake was. For this version I just mixed the wets added the dries and baked until golden brown. As I said, it was decent. But, not something I would ever crave again. It was moist, but kinda dense. Also, a little bland? I know I want something more tender and moister? more moist? Idk but I knew I wanted a cake that could keep for a few days without drying out.
ON TO TEST 2:
155 grams all purpose flour
70 grams sonora flour
113 grams granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
100 grams olive oil
240 grams milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 large eggs
For the second version of this cake I opted to sub in some sonora whole wheat flour. Because I wanted a softer more tender cake, I chose this grain because it has a lower protein percentage than the King Arthur AP flour I typically turn to. I also played around and switched the leavenings to get a more even rise and browning in the cake. Which if ya didn’t know baking soda in addition to help baked goods spread, actually helps to give baked goods a golden brown color. The sonora gave the cake the most amazing flavor but was still a little too dense for my liking. Since I like the flavor, I knew that’s something I would want in the final version of the cake, but it’s a little pricier and not something I’d like to sacrifice time and time again while testing. So I tabled that and moving forward stuck to KA. Over all the cake was still too dense.
TEST 3:
225 grams all purpose flour
200 grams sugar
2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
100 grams olive oil
240 grams milk
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
Next step, reverted back to all AP flour. This time I chose to increase the amount of sugar in the recipe. I know we’re all chasing the “not too sweet” compliment. But, sugar is a crucial ingredient to baking that does so much more than just make something sweet. Sugar acts as a leavening agent and tenderizer. Sugar is able to absorb water from it’s surroundings and when it does so a stronger bond is formed. This strong bond slows down evaporation during the baking process which create a moist + tender interior. While it was softer it still wasn’t quite there yet. So we develop on.
TEST 4:
190 grams AP flour
200 grams sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
100 grams EVOO
240 grams milk
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
So for the sake of this test, I was committed to making “one” change at a time. To show you the best way to approach developing if you’ve never done this before. You can see the changes from one version to the next and pin point what exactly went wrong or right. Kind of a hands on approach to understand your ingredients.
For version four I lowered the amount of flour. Which as you start altering the amounts of ingredients the percentages of everything overall will change. So instead of upping every other ingredient I lowered the flour so that way the cake would have more fat and liquid without me having to slowly test those out one at a time. Because at this point I was kinda over making olive oil cake and I wanted to expedite the process… I am human, and can only eat so much olive oil cake okay i’m just being REAL.
TEST 5: The final-ish version of the recipe!!
190 grams all purpose flour
200 grams sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
125 grams olive oil
240 grams sour cream
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
This version was it. I switched the whole milk out and in it’s place used sour cream. It’s a fattier- which inherently means more flavorful. I also switched up the mixing technique for this version. Up until this point I had just been mixing the dries and wets separately combining and mixing. But, if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million damn times!!! TECHNIQUE IS EVERYTHING. So, I reverse creamed the olive oil into the dry ingredients before adding in the sour cream, eggs and vanilla. The resulting crumb is bouncy and light.
This version is exactly what I wanted in terms of texture. It’s a recipe that could be made and served as it. Maybe with a light dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of finishing oil.
But, for me it never just “ends there”. When I’m developing a recipe I really want to add the the conversation in some way. Especially when so many versions of the recipe I just developed exist. Does the world REALLY need another chocolate chip cookie or vanilla cake recipe? Probably not. The key way I do this is by bringing more flavor to the party. So, after I’ve got something texturally perfect I switch gears and really focus on enhancing the flavor.
I mentioned in version 2 that I used Sonora flour and loved the flavor. So for the “I’m gonna bring so much flavor” round of developing- I’m bringing it back! The flavor of Sonora is mellow and creamy with hints of corn. My absolute favorite grain to add to recipes these days.
I also bought bergamot infused olive oil from Agrumato. I was DYIIING to add to this the entire testing process. Which brings me to another aspect of testing recipes- costs. This is not cheap work to do, especially when you’re testing a recipe 5, 8, 12 times! So to kinda keep the bank account balanced, most of my earlier rounds of testing use more affordable ingredients that I’m okay with sacrificing should the tests go horribly awry. Instead of using this very expensive olive oil over and over and over during every test, I’m using Graza until I’ve got it right.
I used Graza’s Drizzle for most of the tests here- which I know I know they say it should never be heated and is for finishing only. I hear ya, and there are definitely certain times you don’t want to use it in baking. Like if you’re baking bread like focaccia at 425F and you want to use it to grease the pan. It’ll get super bitter and unpleasant. Use Sizzle for that. But but but, I do find that using it in cakes is A-OK. The flavor is stronger than Sizzle, but while it bakes the flavor changes and mellows out- since it’s not hitting a high temp. I was asked about it throughout the series and those are my findings on that. Use whatever you want though- its your cake now. If you want to run your own experiments duking out the flavor between Sizzle and Drizzle you can save $5 of your first order of the duo with the code “ibakemistakes”.