Wednesday, 15 December 2010

I bake - French Yogurt Cake

I had not realised that weekly baking has become a habit of mine until one day Hubby commented how nice it is to have homemade cakes every weekend for breakfast. "People who come to our house always ask my mom why she has cakes in the house all the time.", said Hubby. She always replies, "isn't that the case in every household?"

Not knowingly, I have taken up this family tradition. Even though there are only two of us, I still bake a loaf of cake once a week whenever I can. I like the smell when the cake is about to get ready in the oven, and the surprise to find a better taste when allowing to rest for a day. I adore the tender crunch when I bite into it and the smile from Hubby's face across the breakfast without a single word said. I know we are both happy in our quiet breakfast routine.

Yogurt cake has become my basic cake recipe. So easy and so versatile. I use the recipe by Ms Greenspan. It is a fairly standard recipe, frequently known as Gâteau au yaourt. Ms Greenspan has shown us a couple tricks to elevate the common cake to a true classic. One of them is to rub the citrus zest into sugar before mixing with the eggs. That was a pure genius. I do think that this rubbing process does bring out lots of essential oil from the citrus fruit and the whole cake is more fragrant because of that.

The recipe calls for plain yogurt and let's keep it like that. Plain yogurt works the best, simple, pure and uncomplicated. The flavor should come from the chosen citrus fruit, natural and authentic, not from the flavored yogurt. In terms of flavors, I prefer lemon to brighten my morning and orange to lift up my afternoon spirit.

As for the option of oil, using olive oil makes me feel virtuous. If I want to feel indulged, I use melted butter. When I am bored with the standard recipe, I sometimes replace some flour with ground almond or add some cocoa powder to create a quick chocolate cake. Depends on what you fancy, chopped chocolate chunks, dried fruits, chopped waltnuts mixed in or almond flakes on top. It's such a flexible recipe. But don't take my words for it, give it a try and find out your killer combination.

Lemon yogurt cake

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