Without a doubt, one thing that I learned to love more than anything during this social distancing period is baking. As you can probably tell I am not much of a baker (I only posted one recipe of baked good on this blog so far). I guess I could use my husband as an excuse for that. He is the second best home baker I know (the first has to be his mom), and has been spoiling me with delicious sweet treats over a decade. But since I am staying and eating at home so much more than I used to I decided to give baking a try, and so far, everything I baked was a success :-). And the fact that we already have almost all the essential stuff I need for baking at home (thanks to hubby) definitely makes everything easier.
This orange yogurt cake was first inspired by Nigella Lawson’s Yogurt Pot Cake. I saw her making this beautiful simple cake on BBC many years ago, and it stuck with me ever since. So when I saw a big tub of plain yogurt that was expiring, I immediately thought of her cake. Then I did a little research online, and found Immaculate Bites’ French Orange Yogurt Cake. It was a perfect cake for me to bake as I had a whole lot of oranges at home. She mentions on her post that this is an endlessly adoptable cake. So nervously, I made some changes here and there. I considered this round as more of an experiment, after all I still had enough time and ingredients left to go for a second if I failed. Maybe I got lucky, but the cake turned out to be absolutely delicious, moist, fresh and beautiful.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup. unbleached all purpose flour
- 1 1/4 cup. granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 cup. plain yogurt
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 medium size oranges
- 1/2 cup. corn oil
- 3 eggs, white and yolk separated
Pre heat oven to 175c/347f.
Sift dry ingredients into a mixing bowl.
Add yogurt, vanilla extract, zest of 2 oranges, corn oil and egg yolk.
Whip egg white until it reaches soft meringue consistency. Gently fold it into a cake batter.
Line a loft or cake tin with a non-stick parchment paper and pour in the batter.
Bake for 50 minutes. Test the cake by inserting a thin skewer into the thickest part. It’s baked if it comes out clean.
Heat oven to 220c/428f.
Thinly slice 2 oranges you used the zest of, and place in a roasting tray.
Cook for 12-14 minutes. Cool down for 5 minutes.
Decorate the cake with orange slices and serve rest of the slices on the side.
