The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been big supporters of chef Jose Andres and his work with World Central Kitchen. WCK goes into war-torn countries or countries facing natural disasters and the WCK teams spread out and get people fed and back to work. I’ve watched the videos of WCK’s work in Ukraine and Andres and his teams are amazing. Well, to raise more money for WCK, Jose Andres is putting out a cookbook and he’s getting some of his famous celebrity supporters to contribute recipes. People like… the Duchess of Sussex, Michelle Obama and Ayesha Curry!
Meghan Markle is sharing instructions for a favorite cake in a new charity cookbook. Over the weekend, Penguin Random House announced that chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen was releasing its first cookbook and confirmed that the Duchess of Sussex, 41, is contributing a recipe. Meghan’s lemon olive oil cake will be featured in The World Central Kitchen Cookbook: Feeding Humanity, Feeding Hope, set to hit shelves on Sept. 12. Michelle Obama, Guy Fieri, Emeril Lagasse and Ayesha Curry are also contributing, and all proceeds from the text will benefit the nonprofit’s emergency response efforts.
“The cookbook is a captivating collection of stories and recipes from renowned chefs, local cooks, and friends of the global nonprofit, which feeds communities impacted by natural disasters and humanitarian crises,” said a statement on Meghan and Prince Harry’s Archewell Foundation website. “Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex is proud to have contributed a recipe.”
The lemon cake might seem familiar, as the Duchess of Sussex previously made it for a special occasion. In March 2021, Meghan sent the treat to a group of female restaurateurs in Chicago who partnered with World Central Kitchen to feed those in need during the pandemic. In a sweet touch, the nonprofit said she baked the cake with lemons from her garden.
We talked about it when Meghan baked her lemon olive cake and sent it to WCK workers. She’s so thoughtful. I wonder if this is Meghan’s favorite cake to bake, or if she has cakes for all seasons. I feel like she’s probably always experimenting and updating her recipes for cakes and cupcakes, and she probably does her kids’ birthday cakes herself. Hm! Seriously though, when are we going to get a Duchess Meghan cookbook? There are always rumors that she wants to do a lifestyle book at some point, but if she wrote a cookbook (and included some personal stories in the recipes), it would SELL OUT. I’ve always wondered if Meghan pitched a cooking show to Netflix as well. I would totally watch her cook and bake in her Montecito kitchen.
Photos courtesy of Netflix, Jose Andres’s IG.
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- Montecito, CA – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, Duke and Duchess of Sussex celebrate the 3-year anniversary of their marriage that took place on 19 May 2018 at Windsor Castle in London. Now they moved to the USA with their son Archie Mountbatten, where they are also expecting their second child, which makes Archie a big brother. Pictured: Prince Harry, Meghan Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle BACKGRID USA 19 MAY 2021 USA: +1 310 798 9111 / usasales@backgrid.com UK: +44 208 344 2007 / uksales@backgrid.com *UK Clients – Pictures Containing Children Please Pixelate Face Prior To Publication*
It sounds awful but I’m sure it’s delicious. I’ll be buying the cookbook and will cautiously attempt to bake this lemon olive cake with a fire extinguisher and barf bag nearby.
Meanwhile, I too am impatiently waiting for Meghan to launch her lifestyle branded cooking and remodeling shows.
Moist isn’t a vocab fave around here (along with train, detergent, panties…) but damn! the cake is moist! Be sure to use a fresh olive oil, not one sitting in the cupboard or grocery shelf for a year!
@carrots why’d ya have to list those awful words!!!! My day is ruined! 😉
Why anyone would choose THAT word instead of “undies” makes me want to puke!
On topic, olive oil cake sounds earthy and yum.
Sorry, refresh your day? Hullabaloo, porcini, ziggurat, flamingo, cuddly…
Stupid ?: Where do you get fresh olive oil if not at a store?
I’m just curious, but why does it sound so awful to you? Olive oil cakes are delicious! And lemon anything (unless you hate lemon, I guess) is yum.
Agreed! It sounds amazing – and very Mediterranean.
You know, I only use olive oil when I bake, actually cook, anything. But I imagined this cake had actual olives in it. So that’s where my wretch factor kicked in. Like olive loaf (which isn’t bad since it’s bread) or the horrifying fruit cake with those jellied fruit bits (but in this case meaty and salty). If it’s just the oil, then…I’ve been making this cake my whole life and just didn’t know it, lol!
It’s just the oil.
Lemon cake sounds awful to me because…lemons. I think the only lemon baked good I enjoy are those lemon bars with powdered sugar sprinkled on top lol. BUT, I have had an olive oil cake and it’s amazing. Nom nom. Over the weekend I had one double milk chocolate Pepperidge Farm Milano cookie lol. Felt guilty the rest of the day.
It won’t taste like salad dressing, really. You can use a light olive oil – or even just a plain unflavored oil, like for carrot cake, but you won’t get the same depth of flavor.
Extra Virgin is usually what’s used for baking with olive oil. Very light flavor.
Olive oil cakes tend to be delicious and light. God, now I feel like I want to bake a cake. 🙂
@Ameerah – yes, I use extra virgin for my baking with oil and for pretty much everything. In our house we say “Olive oil is health.” I suggested the others because some people don’t like the flavor.
Same. We use Olive oil fo pretty much everything except frying.
I also use coconut oil when I bake. My banana bread recipe is amazing, very rich and moist, but I only use the bananas and a quarter cup of maple syrup to sweeten it. I also use a combination of whole wheat and flax flour so it’s super healthy. Throw in some chopped walnuts, raisins, sunflower seeds, whatever, it’s heavenly.
My husband’s is from southern Italy and Greek Islands. They have recipes that have no eggs and no butter and are used quite a bit for when they fast for Lent. They are delicious. You’d be surprised how good they can be. Olive oil is a basic fat for that region and they have so many delicious cake flavors.
I just had a citrus olive oil cake from Carrabbas restaurant a few days ago because I was very curious about Meghan’s cake recipe. It was delicious.. I typically like extremely sweet desserts with lots of butter cream frosting or fudge. This wasn’t a super sugary sweet dessert, but it was definitely desert it is a dense cake and it was topped with berries, a little mint, whipped cream and a lemon sauce. I loved it. I am preordering the cookbook and have made sure to get copies for Christmas gifts also. I will be making Meghans recipe for my youngest son’s birthday I’m pretty sure it will become his favorite cake.
It’s interesting because he grew up eating these type of desserts so the heavy chocolate and heavy frosted ones do not appeal to him – he tends to gravitate to fruit flavored desserts. His aunt made a vegan cake with only oil (but lots of spices) and it was delicious.
I hope your cake turns out. They can be very good. And they are lite on the stomach which is alawys a good thing.
Lemon and olive cake does sound vile, but I’m guessing it’s a lemon and olive oil cake, which still sounds a little weird but is actually really good. I’m making one for my partner’s birthday this weekend. Sadly, I live in Ohio though and can’t use lemons from my own lemon tree. Meghan is living the dream.
Why do some posters appear to sit and wait for a thread, not just so they can be the first to post, but that they can be the first to say something negative. Thats so effing annoying.
Why would anyone believe that a C.A.K.E. would have olives in it, as you confessed in another post downstream. Talk about being trigger-happy. Or ‘shoot first and confirm later.’ So tiresome.
So, doing the exact thing you accused another person of doing, literally while you are making the accusation, isn’t annoying and tiresome? Asking for a friend
Also, my mum had the best recipe for olive cake. It was a baked (not fried) cake of orange onion Mediterranean Asian fusion yum! Trying things is the courage of life!
There are high quality, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oils that have a light fruity taste to them. Some places even drizzle said olive oil on ice cream.
A recipe from a year ago for salted olive oil ice cream, with chocolate sauce, just popped up again on the NYC Cooking app within the last week. It was adapted from a specialty served at Ecco restaurant in Atlanta. I’d try it, but reluctantly, I think because it reminds me of avocado gelato I had from an otherwise excellent place near me some time back. That was not a winner! But for some reason, baked goods with olive oil always sounded intriguing, and I’m eager to see Meghan’s recipe (already ordered the cookbook).
Olive oil cakes are soooooooo delicious. It’s just a fat like canola oil or butter and no one thinks twice about putting them in a cake. You don’t taste the oil and a citrus cake is DIVINE. I will be buying this book for sure!
This cake is delicious………my daughter bakes OLIVE oil cakes and they are moist and so flavoursome. Taste it and see!
1) WCK is amazing. 2) She probably changes the recipes to use the fruits and veggies that grows in her garden. I love to do that. I would love food and lifestyle per Meg too!!
Yes!!! Come on Netflix, make it happen!!! I would love for us to have the chance to see Meghan in the kitchen or show off her impeccable closet as well as her decorating and/or renovating techniques. Meghan has more style and chicness in her little pinky than more than most folks who actually have shows.
I agree, WCK is an amazing organization! They’ve helped so many people all over the world. Truly a worthy cause. Their Instagram is very enlightening.
I’ve followed their work for quite a while. My sister-in-law was in Haiti during the 2010 earthquake that inspired JA to start WCK. Their model sounded so interesting, and it’s been amazing to see how much they’ve grown and what they’ve been able to accomplish. So many different types of projects, in addition to critical disaster relief and support.
Olive oil cakes are very good! You don’t use an assertive EVOO, just everyday olive oil. It keeps the cake light. It’s very French. I bet it has yogurt in it.
Never thought of Meghan offering a cookbook but do think this is an excellent idea since she is a known foodie and loves to cook for her family. I certainly would buy this cookbook. A short series would be nice, perhaps a six week once a week series.
@Maxine now that y’all are speaking of it, I NEED this series to manifest.
Yes maxine and the ladies at grenfell kitchen all said what a good cook she is as she spent days cooking with the AND PROVIDED ingredients. Then got the book of their recipes published to help raise funds for the survivors of the horrible fire. Another lovely thing is that she calls them every anniversary to see if there is anymore she can do
She would be perfect for a cooking show!
@Maxine, months ago I posted that if Meghan did a cooking series/show for Netflix, I would be on board. My ideal, at the time, I believe, was a series with Tasty Nacho & his beautiful wife, Delfina. Meghan and Delfina having a great time cooking things up and Harry & Nacho playing, teaching the kids skills in the backyard and just having fun. A blend of Argentinian, English and American cookery along with raising children and whatever. The four of them would be a fun, hot show.imo
If she hadn’t met Harry she probably would have put out a cookbook of her own or had a cooking show.
This sounds delicious and I just preordered the cookbook.
am I the only one laughing at the thought of every single RR cooking a lemon olive oil cake on September 12 so they can criticize the recipe?!?!
Ah, but their MO is to just make stuff up and rant. No actual trying of the recipe required
They’ll probably scribble down their OTT criticisms in August and just click “publish” when the book comes out. And then race off to dump the next bucket of misogynoir.
I’m sure the RR are already writing their stories of how woke olives and lemons are destroying the planet, just like M’s avocados.
I am imagining kitchen staff making this for RR, and not telling them, so that the RR have been eating this cake all along, not realizing it is Meagans recipe.
Yes she could do a cooking show I really liked that segment where she did the prawns&salad, also giving tips on cold proteins and stuff. She knows what she’s talking about. Netflix make it happen!
Lifestyle cooking book plz. Or Netflix lifestyle cooking show plz. 🙏🙏🙏
Both! A cookbook accompanying the cooking show!
I made an olive oil lemon cake after Meghan made hers and I really didn’t like it 😬 but I will try it again using her recipe.
I made one as well, and did not care for it much. It is much less sweet, so hard for me to call it a cake. I think of it as more of a regional taste, where if you grew up with it, you like it more.
I bought the cookbook she put out (or that she was involved in) when they first got married, the one to raise money for the grenfell tower community (I think? blanking on the name of the book), and will buy this one! I agree, if she put out a cookbook, it would sell really well.
As an aside, I wish I could just casually bake and not eat it all! I love baked goods soooo much. And now I’m craving lemon cake!!!!!!
I too bought the cookbook for the Grenfell Tower victims as well. And I will certainly order this cookbook as well!!! I made several donations to WCK for their selfless efforts in Ukrainian. José Andre is an incredibly selfless man who wears his heart on his sleeve. I am so happy that he is creating this cookbook!! Now I have another book to order!!!
If you have access to it, the film about WCK was good. Also there’s a short (10-15 minute) interview with him on the NHK network’s Direct Talk.
This is a wonderful idea! It warms my heart to see how much WCK has grown.
Isn’t it!!!! José Andre is a such a wonderful human being. I wish we had more like him!!!
I love lemon cakes! We usually use this recipe with butter from Ina Garten, but I can see how substituting olive oil would make the cake nice & moist.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/273698/simple-lemon-cake/
Yes but does she know how to make a proper pancake? 😂
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hahahaha! Nice! And what about flapjacks?!
I’ll bet she probably makes her own buttermilk for them, too. 🙂
I so wish she would reboot the Tig via Netflix. It would be so easy for her to create beautiful content around food/lifestyle/design while highlighting and getting money to small businesses and charities.
A lifestyle-cookbook content from her would be instant best sellers, hands down!
I’ll be buying this cookbook cuz I love the work WCK does around the world!
At this point, I will buy whatever Chef Andres is selling.
That man has a guaranteed trip to the pearly gates.
Agreed ^^ Tiffany he definitely does. Chef Andres is truly doing good work in so many places around the world.
I think it’s probably a favorite because it’s easy and quick. Those cakes are often the most delicious. But I doubt she experiments with baking a lot. You have to be an excellent baker to be experimenting. It’s not like cooking. Cooking is an art, baking is a science. I sometimes substitute things like cherries for blueberries when those aren’t in season but even then you have to account for the added moisture if they’re frozen etc. I follow a few baking blogs and even those people have disaster strike when they try to “invent” new recipes. Anyway, I digress.
This sounds great although I will be skipping the “stories”. I don’t know when that became a thing in cookbooks. LOL
It’s an amazing recipe! Had it with a dollop of Cream Whip and a spot of tea and it was a culinary delight, nice and moist and just plain ole Delicious. Thanks for sharing Duchess Meghan.
Chef Jose Andres deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for the work that he and WCK are doing. I went to hear him speak when he came to our hometown and I was riveted by his stories — he’s just as warm in person as he appears on camera.
Also, lemon olive oil cake sounds amazing. I also mostly cook and bake with olive oil (occasionally with Kerrygold butter). I’m going to pre-order the cookbook today.
I was sus of olive oil cakes years ago until I made Nigella’s chocolate olive oil cake. Incredible. I’m so excited to make Meghan’s cake! Will def be buying Chef Jose Andres’s cookbook!
Jose Andres is an angel. I’ve donated to his world kitchen efforts several times and will definitely buy the cookbook. Bless his soul!
Yum! I want that recipe & this cookbook. Jose Andres is able to feed hundreds in rough environments with limited resources. Can you imagine the cooking hacks he must have discovered??
Can’t wait
WCK is such a great organization. I just ordered the book. I really wish she’d included a different recipe though. We already saw the lemon olive oil cake. Olive oil is a savory-only ingredient in my world. I’ve tried it (separately) with lemon, almond and chocolate flavor and it’s just weird. Even super light olive oil still tastes olive-y. I wish I liked it because it’s healthier than my preferred baking fats for sweet things. Maybe it’s a pairing you have to get used to in childhood?
So excited to try this recipe! The book she did before “Together” was sooo good! I preordered this one to go with it and excited to support WCK and obvi my Sussex QUEEN!
I think a GREAT show for Meghan would be a kind of combination cooking show with Flavortown where she visits people in their homes from all backgrounds and they teach her (and educate us) about their family’s or nation’s favorite dish. Because, I like what she does with her own cooking, but the real power of what she did at Greenfell was platforming others!
Lemon cake is my favorite dessert and I’m always trying new recipes in hopes of recreating the perfect slice that I had years ago (the person who made it won’t share because it’s a family recipe). I’ve never had Olive Oil cake but I’m willing to try most lemon cake recipes and can’t wait to try this one.