I've tried making several oil based cakes and they are all too firm, too coarse, or both. And I use cake flour in all my cakes. Perhaps I'm used to butter cakes and their tenderness, but I would like a cake to use in ice cream and other cakes from the fridge.

The Cake Boss recipe didn't work for me, a lemon olive oil cake didn't work for me and neither did the Grown Up Birthday cake from food52.com. I'm not sure about the Cake Boss cake, but the lemon olive oil cake had three eggs and I beat the eggs with the sugar until it increased in volume....but it seemed like too many eggs for the flour. I'll l put the ingredients below for the lemon cake

1 2/3 cups flour (I used cake)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup milk (I used buttermilk)

Lemon zest

Any suggestions? TIA! 

Your recipe doesn't have an egg amount.  Have you tried making it without substituting the flour and milk? If you change the ingredients the texture will be different.

yeah what bakerlady said -- you need to give the recipes a fair shake by making them as written -- it's like setting your gps for a destination and purposely missing two turns -- you're just not gonna get there kwim

Whoops!. I left the eggs out of my post. There were 3 eggs used.

I tried a similar recipe that called for ribboning the eggs and sugar, but got a pound cake texture.....VERY HEAVY. But I did notice the recipe lists a cup of flour as being 5 oz.....so that may be the problem. I followed the recipe exactly, but it turned out sooo heavy.  I'll try it again but reduce the flour. 

As for the Grown Up Birthday recipe......it was tender, but very coarse, like corn bread. My grandmother LOVED IT. Me, not so much. 

Thanks for your help!