Tried and True - Yogurt Cake

It's been a while!  If you'll forgive me, it's been an insane past few weeks.  From a bioelectricity final three Thursdays ago, an Orientation, packing up my room and preparing to volunteer at Commencement two Thursdays ago and getting two wisdom teeth extracted yesterday, this blog has slipped to the bottom of my list even as I finish up another year of school.  Luckily, I've finally managed to get most things in order and will be able to update more regularly and catch up on every most things, including a recipe using some of the homemade yogurt I wrote about, um, quite a while back.

This recipe is borrowed from Clotilde of Chocolate and Zucchini, the author of one of my favorite blogs.  She lives in France and spent two years in California as a software engineer (I have a soft spot for STEM people, particularly engineers).  Actually, I just checked her blog, and she announced the birth of her first son!  I admire her very much.  And her cake recipes, especially this one :)

 Although the original cake that I made with batch of yogurt I made in April was actually coconut, I decided to work with the recipe again for my boyfriend's birthday.  He lives in New York and I in California, so I will miss his real birthday.  Instead, I chose to bake him an ice cream cake to celebrate with some of this friends the day before Commencement (oh, yes, that same Thursday as packing up, etc...).  He's fond of vanilla more than chocolate (gasp!) but loves almond, so the components were a peppermint ice cream with stracciatella-style chocolate streaks, vanilla-peppermint Swiss buttercream and this vanilla-almond yogurt cake. If you'll forgive me further, I promise the ice cream recipe tomorrow.  I'm still working on this whole, oh, West Coast timing thing.

And I also learned a new method of neat piping to go with this cake!

Basically, I piped this in chocolate, backwards on a piece of parchment paper.
I put this in the fridge to harden, then quickly flipped it over onto the frozen buttercream.
As you can see, it still needs a little work.
Sadly, it's already a heck of a lot neater than it usually is :P

Almond-Vanilla Yogurt Cake adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini 

Makes 1 9" round very domed cake

Ingredients

2 eggs

1 cup homemade yogurt (store-bought works, too, of course)

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

⅓ cup melted butter or vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon almond extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

Equipment

2-cup liquid measure 

1 large mixing bowl

1 medium mixing bowl (optional, I just used the 2-cup liquid measure)

¼ teaspoon measure

½ teaspoon measure

1 teaspoon measure

1 tablespoon measure 

1 cup dry measure

1 rubber spatula  

1 whisk for dry ingredients

1 9" round cake pan

Parchment circle to line the bottom

Butter to grease the sides and a little for the bottom

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.  Put a little butter on the bottom on the cake pan, then line with parchment circle.  Lightly grease the sides of the pan. 

2. In the medium mixing bowl or the 2-cup liquid measure, mix the eggs, yogurt, sugar, butter or oil, vanilla and almond extract.

3. In the large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add the wet ingredients and gently fold until there are no streaks of flour left.

4. Pour the batter into the pan and tap a few times to release some of the large bubbles and even out the batter.  Bake at 350F for about 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Just a tip, when leveling the cake, the top makes a crisp, soft, moist and delicious snack.  Enjoy! 

Some assembly required, but I'm told it was worth it :)