I started thinking about baking a yogurt cake when I was reading A Homemade Life and Molly Wizenberg had a recipe for it in the book. Then one day recently, I stumbled upon this post from thekitchn.com. With the arrival of spring, I guess it was time to start thinking about lighter, fresher dessert options (although I'm ready for a chocolate cake any time of day/year). So I mentally filed the yogurt cake as something to try soon and I finally got around to it. Remember that recipe for banana bread with chocolate? Well, I'm happy to report that it has become a new family favorite and I've made it several times since that post. I just baked a few loaves recently and had plenty of extra yogurt on hand so it was the perfect time to tackle the French yogurt cake.
I did a bit of research and consulted a few recipes before starting on this cake. It's a simple cake but there are many variations from a plain one to lime, lemon, and vanilla or almond scented options along with glazes or fruit sauces as accompaniment. But first, I learned that this is a French yogurt cake because it's often the first cake a French child learns to bake. And I also read somewhere that this is one of just a few desserts a French family will make at home since there are so many amazing patisseries in France. This makes total sense to me. I'm not sure I would bake as much as I do if I had access to the caliber of pastry that's so widely available in France.
In the end, I decided to make a fairly plain French yogurt cake, accented with a bit of lemon, which I love. Specifically, I used the zest and juice of one lemon to add just a little bit of zip. This cake is quite similar to the Italian orange cake I wrote about last month. I would say that the yogurt here makes this cake a bit more dense but in the most moist way possible. The yogurt and lemon give the cake a bit of tang but it's not overpowering and the cake by no means tastes like yogurt.
I also decided to forgo any type of glaze or fruit sauce (well, initially...see details at the end of the post). I wanted to keep it straightforward and simple and I'm just personally not into fruit sauces/jams/marmalade although it certainly looks beautiful. However, my husband was tasting this and he could totally visualize this cake being accompanied by a raspberry or strawberry sauce. In fact, it could even take a chocolate glaze or whipped cream. The cake, being relatively neutral and "clean", is a good partner for any number of creative accompaniments. I would be interested in making this cake again with an almond twist, using some almond extract. In some recipes, a portion of the flour is substituted with ground almonds; that would obviously be more work but I have a feeling it would be quite tasty.
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| Although there is no raspberry in the cake itself, I think lemon and raspberry are a good flavor combination |
