From our dear friend Pamela Sheldon Johns' cookbook Italian Food Artisans (Chronicle Books, 2000), this recipe uses 1 1/2 cups of Tenuta di Capezzana Extra Virgin Olive Oil instead of butter. You've never tasted a pound cake this moist and seen such a beautiful shade of green when baked:
Tenuta di Capezzana, the estate of the Contini Bonacossi family, stands in the gentle hills west of Florence, overlooking the Arno Valley. Documents dating back to 804, in the time of Charlemagne, note the production of wine and olive oil on the property, which were bartered in exchange for use of the land. Today, Frantoio, Moraiolo, Pendolino, and Leccino olives are milled in a single cold pressing in the family frantoio for one of Tuscany's best artisanal oils. At Tenuta di Capezzana, if any of this moist rich cake is left over from dessert, it is finished off with capuccino at the next day's breakfast.