Lemon, lime and yoghurt cake

I've got a bit of a thing for yoghurt at the moment. Greek-style only please. I start my day with a dollop on top of some muesli and add a drizzle of honey. Sometimes I end my day with a garlic loaded dollop on a lamb wrap, but that's just how I roll with yoghurt.

On this particular day, I was out of butter and craving home made cake with a dollop of said yoghurt on the side. I recalled making other cakes using oil as the fat element and had plenty of olive oil on hand. This recipe was inspired and adapted from one of my favourite blogs to stalk - Smitten Kitchen (www.smittenkitchen.com). And on a side note, if you haven't already, check this site out - Deb has some amazing recipes and drool-worthy photography. I've spent hours on there getting hungry and I believe she has her own book coming out soon (another one to add to the collection hey M?).

Anyway, back to the cake. So I was inspired by Smitten Kitchen's Blood Orange Olive Oil cake. Olive oil, greek yoghurt and basic cakey type ingredients all lend themselves to our various citrus friends. I had on hand one lemon and one lime and a whole lot of yoghurt and oil. Unlike the blood orange cake recipe, I did not add any of the actual fruit segments to the mix as I thought lemon and lime segments may be a little bitter to come across, and the yoghurt and extra virgin olive oil lend their own tang to the taste. I added some vanilla bean paste because as well as caramel, vanilla is another obsession of mine (makes sense - they're close flavour relations right?).

I probably had the oven up too high (I've adjusted the recipe for you all) as you'll see the finished product is a little browner than I'd have liked, but the olive oil and yoghurt stopped this little beauty from drying out. The cake wasn't crumbly but had a delicious almost crunchy edge when freshly baked with a soft texture inside. It definitely satisfied this craving and was lovely with just a sprinkle of icing sugar and a simple dollop of plain yoghurt.

Lemon, lime and yoghurt cake (adapted from Smitten Kitchen's Blood Orange Olive Oil cake)

You will need:

1 cup of plain flour
3/4 cup of self-raising flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil (extra virgin tastes good, but regular should do the trick)
zest and juice of 1 lime
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2/3 cup of plain yoghurt (I recommend greek-style)
1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste (optional)

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees celsius
2. Grease a cake tin with some olive oil (I used a rather large bundt tin - but you could use a loaf or round or whatever!)
3. In a large bowl, mix the zest and sugar with your hands until combined and really zestily fragrant

4. Mix the juice of the lemon and the lime with the yoghurt in another bowl.

5. Add the 3 eggs, the olive oil and vanilla bean paste to the yoghurt and juice mixture and whisk until combined. 

6. Add your other dry ingredients to the sugar and zest mixture in the other bowl. You will now have a bowl of wet ingredients and a bowl of dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix until just combined. Don't go crazy on the mixing.

7. Pour your combined mix into the prepared cake tin and pop into the oven for around 40-45 mins. Test with a skewer as usual to see if done.

8. Allow the cake to cool a bit before removing from the tin.

9. Sprinkle icing sugar over the top once cool. Enjoy with a dollop of yoghurt!

 

If you're feeling cheffy or fancy, make yourself a lime syrup and pour this over before serving. I'm not cheffy or fancy (sorry M!) so there is no syrup here!  

Enjoy! B x