Low-Fat Yogurt Loaf

It was a Friday night, and we needed a dessert to follow some delicious Thai food. I decided to experiment a little with the French Yogurt Cake recipe from Bon Appetit magazine (May, 2012). I've made it a bunch of times, but I wanted to see if I could eliminate some of the sugar and oil. I knew it would probably end up a tad less delicious than usual, but I figured the next day we could eat it with jam (which is what we did).

The recipe is really easy, which is probably why I keep making it. First I whisked the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt). I changed around the wet ingredients a little this time. I used 1/2 cup sugar instead of the whole cup, 1/4 c oil instead of 1/2 cup, but I still used 1 cup yogurt - unlike the recipe's whole milk Greek style yogurt, however, I just used what I had, which was plain ol' 1%.

I usually don't bother with the rubbing together of the sugar and lemon zest. Too much work. I skipped the zest this time, and decided to add in almond extract with the vanilla - because almond extract is amazing. Please go out and buy it, and put it in everything. I also added some almonds to the top to spruce it up a little.

The cake ended up spongy and not too sweet. Perfect to eat warm out of the oven with some butter or jam. Sure it was a little dry by the next day, but it didn't last very long anyway. The recipe is very adaptable - it's such a basic yogurt loaf, you could really add anything. I'm a little surprised, since Bon Appetit's recipes are usually a little fancier, but this was a great find.