Olive oil cake is a test of restraint — too much flour and you've made a doorstop, too little and you've made a puddle. Shelby Sieg, operating partner at Lua in Oklahoma City, has been threading that needle long enough to understand that the oil isn't a substitution for butter, it's an argument against it.
The technique here is about emulsification order and pan temperature. Sieg builds the batter by streaming the olive oil into the eggs and sugar first — before any dry ingredients touch the bowl — which creates a stable emulsion that stays open and tender during the bake. The cake goes into a 325°F oven, not 350°F, which slows the set and keeps the crumb from seizing.
Bobby's version, by broadcast accounts, baked hot and fast. It is not that hard to dry out an olive oil cake if you approach it like you approach everything else.