Chocolate yoghurt cake

It has been more than a month since my last post. It was not planned – I said I was going to do a whole month of Brazilian food to celebrate the Olympics – but it did not turned out that way. 

After a break in Cornwall and then a string of family members coming over to stay, it felt like I left life up in the air, and when I arrived back home it all came crashing down. You know, piles of unopened letters, cleaning to do, I couldn’t even start to think about recipes for the blog. In fact this has been the first week in a whole month that I have opened my computer.

Then I don’t know why but amidst the chaos I decided to make one of my least favourite baking recipes: cake.

I am cake’s biggest fan, just have a look at my Pinterest page and you will see beautiful cakes, frosted like a sculpture, with the perfect rise and colour. I dream of emulating that, however this is rare as I am by nature a chaotic cook. But baking cakes is almost like a science, you need to do things by the book.

I wish I could listen to my own advice because true to my inner chaotic cook, I took this original recipe from my aunt and changed it completely. It takes almost the same weight of yoghurt and butter, but I wanted to challenge myself – and risk a flat cake for the sake of adventure – to try substituting most of the butter for yoghurt. I wanted 100% substitution but that was not quite possible.

So it is not a super fluffy, tall rising cake, but it is a twist on a traditional worth trying.

I even managed to follow a precise recipe for an espresso icing.

Well, not really, I added more espresso than I should, but glad I did.

Chocolate yoghurt cake

150g brown sugar

60g butter

200g flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

4 eggs

200g full fat yoghurt

200g dark chocolate

Icing:

170g butter, softened

250g icing sugar

47g cocoa powder

30ml double cream

1 tbsp espresso

1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan. Start with the cake, sieve the flour and raising agents together and set aside

2. Beat the sugar and softened butter for 2-3 minutes with an electric whisk

3. Add eggs, whisk, and follow with the flower mixture

4. Melt the chocolate (I did it in quick blasts in the microwave) until melted. Leave it to cool for a minute, stir the yoghurt in then fold it into batter

5. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean when poking the centre of the cake. Let it cool completely on a rack before taking it out of the tin.

6. For the icing slowly whisk the icing sugar and cocoa to softened butter

7. Finally whisk the double cream and espresso until combined. This icing is enough for filling plus top icing!