Does anyone else feel like they had way too high expectations about what back-to-school would be like? In my head, I thought my windows would have already been washed by now, I would have already started a new exercise schedule and I would have already weeded my entire garden in preparation for the winter.
The kids started on Tuesday. And yesterday they were off, so that makes one day total of my being on my own. I may be a bit out of touch with reality.
I do feel out of touch with you guys – how are you? Here – I made some cake.
Gâteau au Yaourt, which means yoghurt cake, is probably the French equivalent to coffee cake, or pound cake. Everyone makes it. If you go to someone’s house for “le gouter” (this means “snack,” and is pronounced goo-tay) it will likely be sitting pretty on a dish, waiting to be eaten while you have your tea or coffee.
I won’t even bother trying to tell you how to pronounce “yaourt.” It’s about as easy as saying “en haut,” which means “upstairs.” Basically, in the first instance (yaourt) you spit at the back of your throat loudly, and in the second (en haut) you grunt through your nostrils in two different intonations. Et voila. You speak French now. And I’m sure that’s way more than you were interested in knowing.
You start with a plain yoghurt
and dump it in the bowl. For those of you who clean as you go, don’t chuck the yoghurt pot – you’re going to need it. When you bake in France, you measure by weight, not by cups and spoons. So this cake is easy for French people because they don’t have to weigh the flower and sugar, etc. They just measure it in the pot.
Like so. Two pots of sugar.
Three pots of flour. (Gluten-free works really well).
One pot of oil.
And then you add a teaspoon of baking powder
a half-teaspoon of salt
and … what would be vanilla sugar in France. They use that more often than liquid extract. But you can put a teaspoon of liquid vanilla. I didn’t have any, so I just cut open a vanilla bean and scraped out the seeds. I know, I know – I’m so glamorous.
Finally, you crack three eggs
and put the entire thing in a 9” cake pan.
In the pre-heated oven to 375°F (200°C) for about 25 minutes. I added another ten minutes with the oven turned off.
Oh, so what if the cake cracked on top. I’ll just squish it down a little. It’s still cute.
Now it’s cuter.
And voila – a way-easy, not-so-awful-for-you (I think about 325 calories for 1/8 of the cake, which is quite filling), fairly-tasty-in-a-non-chocolate-way cake to whip up for guests.
In other news, Young Knight started soccer.
Isn’t he handsome? I always wanted to be a soccer mom. As long as none of the matches take place when it’s raining or cold. Ever.
- 1 plain yoghurt
- 2 pots of sugar
- 3 pots of flour
- 1 pot of oil
- 1 teaspoon baking power
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Combine all the ingredients without any particular order. Use the yoghurt pot to measure everything else. Preheat the oven to 375° and then bake in a 9″ cake pan for about 30 minutes. You can turn the oven off and leave it in longer if you the center is still liquidy.
Looks delicious! I’d like to try it if I can figure out the whole container thing…