Since the French Yogurt cake got such amazing raves, I decided to give it another shot. I whisked the oil in beforehand with the eggs and sugar to skip the folding step at the end so that the cake would be more tender and less greasy. This time I just had to make the glaze because the sticky topping looked just too good! I used Greek Yogurt instead of 2%... anything higher can be pretty hard to find. I also reduced the baking powder to 1/2 tsp for 2/3rds of the recipe (3/4 tsp for a whole recipe) to get a tighter crumb. Instead of 2 mini loaves, I got 9 muffins. A muffin is actually pretty big when you consider that it's about 1/4th of a mini loaf. I don`t think I usually eat one fourth of a mini loaf as one serving (at least not when I'm making pound cake!). These were a little softer and not as coarse, but something still feels like it's missing and I think it's butter...haha. I brought the rest to school because I didn't think we could finish them. I was suprised when my friends told me they weren't as bad as I described they would be. I searched for some yogurt cakes made with butter and I saw this one at Canelle et Vanille that looked really good!
Thanks to Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction for choosing this recipe. The recipe can be found on her site and here. Don't forget to visit the TWD Blogroll!
I've wanted to bake a French yogurt cake for the longest time, but never got to it because I couldn't decide which recipe to choose (how typical...haha). Every recipe I found called for folding in the oil in the last step, which seemed kind of different from most cake recipes (non yogurt). Could it be a crucial step to making yogurt cakes and provide some improvement in texture that can benefit other oil based cakes as well? I just couldn't resist making this cake the way it was written (loaf #1) as well as whisking the eggs and sugar and then whisking in the oil until they were completely combined (loaf #2) to see if there would be a difference. Luckily, this recipe was easy to divide in 3's so I made 1/3rd of the recipe for each mini loaf pan and weighed everything to be as fair as possible.
Left: folding in oil at end; Right: whisking in oil with eggs and sugar
Loaf #2 rose slightly higher and was more pebbly on the surface than loaf #1. Loaf #1 was also denser, chewier and greasier (almost like a Costco muffin kind of way) while loaf #2 was slightly more tender and ligher. Judging by the P&Q, I think I'm in the minority with this one because I wasn't too crazy about the French yogurt cake. It was a little too springy, dense and low fat tasting for me. I'll probably make the glaze next time to get the full effect and use the method for loaf #2 (whisk the oil in beforehand with the eggs and sugar). That way, we won't have to worry about overmixing or greasiness. I actually liked the cake a little better the next day flavourwise, however, the differences were even more noticeable and loaf #1 was drier and became even denser. I think it's so cool how the same amount of fat, but added differently can affect moistness and texture.
Thanks to Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction for choosing this recipe. The recipe can be found on her site and here. Don't forget to visit the TWD Blogroll!
