Sometime last year I made an olive oil cake. I shared the recipe in a column. It was good, but what made it great was the ricotta, whipped up with some sugar and fresh-squeezed lemon juice, fresh raspberries and lemon whipped cream.

I had a late lunch with my friends Maryellen and Mary Ellen yesterday. I call them Mimi, or Meemz, and ME, respectively. They used to have a restaurant in Bath, and they’re both, like, amazing cooks. Even better than I, if you can imagine :-)

For dessert they made cream puffs with lemon curd, raspberries and whipped cream. I’ll tell you all about that some other time. Today it’s about chocolate. Dark, decadent chocolate olive oil cake.

I know I’ve said this a few too many times, but I love chocolate cake. My favorite recipe for chocolate cake is Chocolate Town Fudge Cake, from the back of a Hershey’s unsweetened chocolate box. Then there’s chocolate zucchini cake. OMG.

Really, just about any chocolate cake makes me swoon, as long as it’s homemade. Don’t ever offer me a piece of Hannaford chocolate cake. And don’t ever offer me a piece of white or yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Unless it’s, like, the only cake, period, around.

White cake with white frosting? Yup! And wedding cake. What is it about wedding cake that’s so good? I don’t know, but I can’t resist a piece of wedding cake. When I went to my friends Ryan and Erika Leighton’s wedding (a year and a half ago), by the time they got around to serving the cake I was home in bed. They still owe me.

Whenever I’ve thought about chocolate olive oil cake, as I did after I wrote about the plain olive oil cake, I think of my friend Judie Webster (another ridiculously fabulous cook). She told me about the tall, mini chocolate olive oil cakes at Maine Street Meats in Rockport.

I called the owner, Sarah Greer, and she told me a little about the cakes. They’re gluten-free, and dense, made with a 75 percent dark chocolate from Venezuela, extra virgin olive oil, eggs, and a pinch of salt. I asked her to share the recipe, but why would she? They are mini gold mines in her shop, sitting there in their tall, dark brown baking cups, defying people to not buy one. Hello.

So, anyway, last week Kim was having a cake class at Eventide. I planned to go, and had hinted to her that she might want to make a chocolate olive oil cake. Unfortunately I was the only one smart enough to sign up, and it was canceled.

Bummer. It would have been a win-win-win for me. I would have watched a master make a chocolate olive oil cake (using some of the best olive oil in the world), gotten her recipe, and best of all, I would have gotten to eat the cake. I would have had my cake and eaten it too.

Kim did send me her recipe. It called for tangerine dark balsamic and blood orange olive oil, though, which I didn’t have in the pantry, so I went online and found another recipe. It also called for a blood orange ganache. One of these days I’m going to spring for those ingredients and make it.

This (shortened, condensed) recipe, for dark chocolate olive oil cake is from Love & Lemons:

Stir ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder into ½ cup boiling water. Remove from heat and add a tblsp. vanilla. In a bowl, sift 1 1/3 c. flour with ½ tsp. baking soda and a tsp. salt.

The next step cracked me up: “In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat (a cup of sugar, 3 eggs and ¾ cup olive oil,) until you have a light, fluffy cream, about 3 minutes.”

Apparently Love & Lemons assumes everyone has a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. I don’t even have a pantry.

Anyway, I used my 30-year-old electric beater and the mixture came out as light and fluffy as a fancy stand mixer would have.

Now turn down the speed and blend in the cocoa mixture, then slowly add the flour mixture till all is blended.

Rub oil over a 9-inch pan (I used square) and line the bottom with parchment paper. Dump the batter in and bake at 325 for 30 to 35 minutes, ‘til the sides are set and the top of the cake still looks slightly moist. A cake tester inserted into the center should come out clean.

I made my famous shiny dark chocolate boiled frosting to top it. (Email me if you want that recipe; believe me, you do), and I threw a dollop of fresh whipped cream on top of that.

The recipe called for cardamom in the whipped cream, and I’m going to add some of that today. I’ll keep you posted.

P.S. There’s some pretty convincing evidence that makes a good argument for the health benefits of the combination of dark chocolate and olive oil. I read that researchers have found that olive oil-enriched chocolate makes for better heart health, a significant increase in HDL (good cholesterol), and decreased blood pressure.

So make this cake, and eat it too.

See ya next week.