I have made this recipe before, but I think it was on TikTok, back when I actually had/used that app. This cake consists of a layer of caramel-laden blood orange slices that are sitting on top of a dense but delicious olive oil cake. It’s fairly straightforward in flavor profile, and pretty fun to make, honestly! The one key component that actually requires a lot of attention is the caramel – cook it for too little time and it’ll just make the cake too sweet. Too long, and it’ll burn. There is a certain degree of leeway with it, but it’s still something you should keep an eye out when making it. The rest of this dessert is extremely straightforward – once you pour the caramel into a baking container, let it cool down, layer on your orange slices and cake batter, bake it, and flip it upside down so that the cake is on the bottom and the caramelized oranges are on top. If you made this recipe using either a ring mold or spring form pan, there is a good chance a lot of the excess caramel leaked out the sides. In the event of that, I included a recipe for a blood orange and caramel glaze that uses the hardened pieces of leaked out caramel, coupled with blood orange juice – by making that into a glaze, you can pour it right back over the cake, allowing that to glaze the slices again and keep them nice and shiny.

For the caramel:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup water

Heat up the caramel and salt over the stove first. Once the sugar begins to brown, add in the water and gently stir. Allow it to cook to about 300 degrees F. Pour into a lined 6-inch cake round.

For the fruit layer:
2 blood oranges, peeled

Slice the blood oranges along the width(you want the pretty gradients) into 1/2 inch-thick pieces. Arrange around the hardened caramel that was poured into the lined cake round.

For the olive oil cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tspn baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tspn vanilla extract
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
zest from 2 blood oranges

Mix to form your batter. Pour into the cake round. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. Allow the cake to cool down before flipping and unmolding. If you used a ring mold for baking the cake, scrape off the hardened caramel that has oozed out of the sides of the mold and reserve that. If baking the cake in a regular cake round, it is ready to serve!

For the glaze:
Juice from 1 blood orange
Reserved pieces of caramel

Take the reserved caramel pieces and cook that down with blood orange juice. Pour that mixture over the cake so that it will coat the blood orange slices.