TWD - French Yoghurt Cake

This week Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction has chosen French Yoghurt Cake with Marmalafde Glaze as the TWD recipe. I was excited to make this after not liking last week’s recipe at all. Dorie says that this French yoghurt cake is a variation of the kind of cake that most French people would bake if they had to bake a cake. And, I can see why. This cake is easy to make and absolutely delicious. You could dress it up or down – it’s almost the little black dress of the cake world.

The cake is made in a loaf tin, but Dorie says you can also make it in a round tin and turn it into a layer cake. It is so easy to make as there is no creaming of butter etc. All you do is rub lemon zest into your sugar (which is a fantastic way of infusing your baking with the flavour of lemon – so much more effective than just adding the lemon zest), add yoghurt, eggs and the dry ingredients and then stir in some oil (I used rice bran oil which I always use when a flavourless oil is required). The dry ingredients include ground almonds which contribute to the moistness of the cake.

Once the cake has baked and cooled, you top it with a glaze of warmed and strained lemon marmalade. I didn’t have any lemon marmalade on hand and the only stuff I had is some home made marmalade which I made ages ago (we don’t eat it) and it seemed to thick to be bothered straining it. So, I used some quince glaze which I made last year to glaze the top of the cake. It gave it a nice glossy sheen. You could even leave the glaze off or pour over a lemon syrup which would be delicious.

I sliced up most of the cake for the tradesmen on our site, but ate one slice still slightly warm with some extra yoghurt. This cake would also make a great dessert served with whipped cream and fresh berries or a stone fruit compote, of if you had leftovers (which I doubt) it would make a fantastic base for trifle or a very rich bread and butter pudding. This is my new “go to” loaf recipe. See if the other TWDers loved it as much as I did here.