Yogurt Cake | Curd Cake

Its almost six months since I shut down my page and to be frank there were precise reasons too. However, for the past one month I had been making up my mind to start over this space again. Laziness concealed over and I kept postponing to post the drafts. Cooking went on all these days in the kitchen but if you ask me if I tried something new then, I must say not much in these months. First of all, let me thank each one of my good friends who kept a check on me in my absence. Thanks dears, you all have been my inspiration to share more and more recipes in my page.

We moved to our own home and so was busy getting the works done to move in. Then there was shuffling, packing, re packing and then moving to the new apartment. Finally once in our home, there were still many things to be done starting from kids admissions, getting ourselves adapted to the new community and so on. Luckily this was during school vacations and so we had enough time to settle down. Once school started, I was worried about kids getting adjusted to the new school, teachers and all. All thanks to God for his grace to a new beginning and everything is back in track now. Before the school shuts again for Christmas vacations, I thought to start over. Hope you all are doing good.

Today's recipe is a simple yogurt cake that I tried from joy of baking. This is the first recipe that I tried after moving in our apartment. The cake is very moist, soft and delicious. The cake has a very small quantity of almond flour which definitely adds to the texture and taste of the cake. All other ingredients in this simple cake is readily available in the pantry. There is no butter but eggs are in which adds to the soft airy touch along with greek yogurt or hung curd(I used hung curd). This is a perfect cake for any occasions or do try this out if you wish to bake a simple tea cake. The best part of this cake is you hardly require any fancy tools. You can even use the mixer jar to beat eggs and mix the wet ingredients. Using a spatula you can fold over the dry ingredients. The texture of the cake is dense yet moist with a almond -vanilla flavor.

Preparation time~ 15 minutes
Baking time ~ 30-40 mins
Serves ~ 8*8 cake
Author ~ Julie
Ingredients
dry ingredients
all purpose flour / maida 1 1/4 cup
baking powder 1 tsp
baking soda 1/2 tsp
salt 1/8 tsp
lemon zest of 2 lemons
ground almonds or almond flour 1/4 cup or 30 gm whole

wet ingredients
any neutral oil 1/2 cup
eggs 2
thick yogurt or Greek yogurt 3/4 cup
vanilla essence 1 tsp
granulated sugar 3/4 cup( originally 1 cup)

Method

• I used whole almonds for the recipe and so blanched almonds first. Then powdered the almonds, if you would like to know more about how to do it. Check this link where I have described nicely.
• Sift all the dry ingredients twice and keep aside. Pre heat oven to 350 degrees F or 170 degrees C.
• Prepare a cake tray 8*8 by lining with parchment paper and butter the sides of the pan, dust with flour too.
• Beat the eggs with granulated sugar well at room temperature. Add the oil and yogurt to this,  mix well. It gives a mayonnaise like consistency. Add in the vanilla essence, give a quick stir.
• Pour in the middle of the dry ingredients and combine well. You may not need more liquid content but just in case you need add few tsp of milk to reach the consistency.

• Pour in the prepared pan and place in the center of the oven. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Check with a tooth pick inserted in the center of the cake after 30 minutes to prevent over browning, mine got down at 32 minutes to be precise.
• Wait for the cake to cool down on a wire rack and then cut, enjoy with a cup of black tea/ coffee !!

NOTES
* This recipe is adapted from joy of baking. The original recipe calls for 1 cup sugar but I felt 3/4 cup was moderately sweet. You can add as per sweet tooth.
* You can dust the top of the cake with powdered sugar too but I just love the golden crust on top so avoided to dust with sugar.
* I have used sunflower oil but you may always use canola/ corn oil too.