Almost Guilt Free Rosemary Lemon Olive Oil Cake with Apricot Compote

Searching for an olive oil cake to make for the weekend I came across a link to Catholic Guilt and Lemon Rosemary Olive Oil Cake from Lora at The Cake Duchess.  Please follow the link to find the recipe and her story.  I love the story that goes along with her recipe but decided that my olive oil cake with it's apricot compote would be guilt free this weekend.  As I drove to the store to buy lemons for the cake I couldn't get the idea of Catholic guilt out of my head, I think it's a deeper more intense type of guilt than your average every day kind of guilt.  I'm not exactly sure but this weekend I wanted to be in a guilt free zone.  I thought I could accomplish that by allowing myself to relax, cook, take walks, go to the farmers market and experiment with my camera.  I bought Plate to Pixel by Helene Dujardin and also spent some time this weekend trying to decipher the chapter on shutter speed, aperture and ISO.  That quickly became enough photography info for the weekend. It can be frustrating not getting the desired effects in my pictures so I decided to put some time into learning more about my camera in an attempt to break free from my picture taking rut routine, sort of like a New Year's resolution in June.   Realizing that I might be suffering from photography guilt, one of the worst types- up there with Catholic Guilt, I decided to let it go and not intrude into my guilt free weekend zone.  Let me also share with you that it's not easy taking pictures of  food outdoors, the elements on what appears to be a lovely Summer afternoon can be harsh.  Contending with ants, bees, mosquitoes, wind, bright sunlight, shadows etc. while trying to keep my cake looking fresh and stress free can be challenging.  Kind of sounds like I was photographing my cake in a swamp and not in my backyard doesn't it?  There were decisions to make about how much compote to put on the cake and does it look too gooey?  A short drive back to the farmers market to buy more apricots to show whole in the photo to counter balance the gooeyness of the compote was a distinct possibility.  It's much easier to eat a piece of cake than to take a picture of it and you can quote me on that.  Anyway I did have a relaxing weekend and a wonderful rosemary lemon olive oil cake to enjoy and share with friends.  I followed Lora's directions but didn't have a tube pan so I baked my cake in a bundt pan instead.  It's a light flavorful cake that goes great with fruit like apricots and if you love rosemary you should consider giving this recipe a try.

Please follow above link to visit Lora at The Cake Duchess for her story and  recipe for Rosemary Lemon Olive Oil Cake.

Ingredients & Directions for Apricot Compote

8 ripe apricots, sliced into wedges
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 strips lemon peel, use a vegetable peeler

In a medium saucepan combine the water, sugar, vanilla bean and lemon peel strips and bring to a simmer.  Add the apricot wedges and simmer until the fruit is soft, about 15-20 minutes.  Remove the lemon peels.  If you use the vanilla extract add it to the fruit at the end of cooking.

Makes about 2 cups