Our friend Anna, Aussie expat in France, mentioned to me recently that this is the cake that Parisians bake.
In fact, it’s almost the only thing that most of her peers ever bake and, despite being the standard birthday cake for children, it’s usually served unadorned. Anna is revered by her fellow school mums for going to the extraordinary effort of making icing!
I can understand why it’s so popular, because this is an incredibly simple yet delicious recipe to knock together. I needed to make two cakes in a hurry yesterday, and was able to whip them both up in under 15 minutes (and that was making one cake at a time). The batter is made without an electric mixer and involves simply beating the dry ingredients into the wet ones with a whisk.
There are oodles of recipes for this cake floating around, but the one I like best is Dorie Greenspan’s, from her cookbook, Baking From My Home To Yours. Here is our version, made with Pete’s homemade Greek yoghurt and cumquat jelly. This batch was made with straight flour, omitting the optional almond meal.
Click here for a printable version of this recipe.
- 1 cup (150g) plain (all purpose) flour
- ½ cup (65g) almond meal (or extra ½ cup plain flour)
- 2 teaspoons (10g) baking powder
- pinch salt
- 1 cup (220g) sugar
- 1 teaspoon of lemon zest
- ½ cup (125ml) Greek yoghurt
- 3 large (59g) eggs
- ¼ teaspoon homemade vanilla extract
- ½ cup (115g) vegetable oil
- ½ cup cumquat jelly (for glaze) or other jam or marmalade
1. Spray a 21.5 x 11 x 7cm loaf tin with oil spray. I use this Chicago Metallics loaf tin, which seems to be the perfect size for all sorts of things. Preheat oven to 175C (350F), or 160C with fan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, meal, sifted baking powder and salt.
3. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the yoghurt, eggs, vanilla, sugar and zest until well combined.
4. Scatter in the dry ingredients, a little at a time, whisking as you go. Once mixed, gradually fold in the oil with a spatula. The resultant batter with be smooth and shiny. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf tin and level out the top.
5. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool the pan on a rack for 5 minutes. Loosen around the edges of the cake with a butter knife, then turn out the cake and allow to cool to room temperature on a wire rack.
6. Glaze: melt the cumquat jelly in a small bowl in the microwave, being careful not to boil it. Brush all over the cake with a pastry brush, and allow to set.
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Here is an easy birthday cake which I made using this recipe…
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Looks great, I will have to try this one. I recently tried making a yougurt cake (supposedly also a french yougurt cake recipe) but the texture was pretty gluggy and it didn’t taste all that great either. This recipe sounds a lot nicer – thank you!
Hope you like it! You just need to order a Chicago Metallics loaf tin to bake it in. Oh, what’s that? You’ve already ordered one? ;-)
I know what I’m making next time I need a cake! My mom and I used to make this as our standard coffee accompaniment when we lived in England during the early 80’s; but the recipe got lost in a move. I will print her out a copy – Yay!!!!
(now if someone knows how to make peppermint buttercreams that you roll out into a log before slicing off little coins my life will be complete…)
Hi Christine, nice to hear from you! Can’t help you with the buttercreams, sorry, but will let you know if I come across anything… :) Celia
Made it yesterday afternoon for a friend that was having a bad day – I’m going to pop a load of laundry in and take it over to her. I figured there was no better remedy for a toddler having trouble adjusting to preschool than a liberal application of baked goods to all parties involved…
Baked it in two smaller loaf pans so we could keep half for ourselves – it took 45 minutes in a 160C oven with the fan on.
Chris, sugar is a non-negotiable essential in that sort of situation! I hope your friend isn’t too distressed – I remember that time well. And I hope she enjoyed the cake! :)
Celia
oh wow … I love the icing. I’ve made lemon drizzle cake before, but next time I am dropping the drizzle and using this glaze.
Love the ‘slices of cake’ photos … each one is the same size … no fights over the ‘big’ slice at your table so :-)
Gillian, there in lies the great merit of this cake, it’s ability to slice beautifully. I actually think it looks much nicer sliced than whole, so I’ll often slice it before I take it to a function.
The glaze was a breeze. Dorie’s original recipe calls for a marmalade glaze, but we had the cumquat jelly on hand, so that’s what I used. I guess you could use any jam or jelly as a glaze – just warm it gently in the microwave until it’s runny enough to brush on.
Celia
This looks far more delicious than any yoghurt cake I have tasted here – but their idea of measuring everything out in a yoghurt pot does have its merits! They also often bake this in a pyrex or ceramic dish and find my springform tins fascinating. They don’t make biscuits either – let alone a good Australian “slice”! Thank goodness there is a bakery on every corner.
I’d like a recipe for those peppermint creams too!
Anna
Anna, doesn’t that mean you have to rinse out the yoghurt pots each time? I’m still astonished that Parisians don’t bake more, given that the French are world renowned for pastries and sweets. I guess the bakery on every corner accounts for that though! Celia
There is always a glass yoghurt pot floating around a French kitchen so no washing if you measure out the flour and sugar first and finally the oil. Even the baking powder comes in sachets of 11g (actually it only comes like this – bit annoying) so you just tip one in. Think the French like the yoghurt pot idea as they are metric so normally everything has to be weighed – no cup measurements.
Just about to have our giant gougères with poached eggs that we bought at organic market. You have to come and visit Celia. Paris is calling you…..
Just made it – have to admit that it took me a bit longer than 15 minutes, though I did have a small boy at my side insisting that I draw hearts and triangles for him so I was a bit distracted. Looks like a great cake though.
Glad you liked it, Alex! :)
I went home and made this cake on Friday after reading about it here – second time I have done that…rush home to make what Celia has blogged about! Multiple layers of danger around you BIC!
I used the almond meal but sadly in my rush I put a teaspoon of baking soda in before realising that it had to be baking powder. So it ended up with half and half. Not the smartest move and probably was the cause of the slight sag in the middle. The texture was great (a bit more dense than what your looks look like in the pics), and it was a nice tasting cake (apart from the slight baking soda taste which I really don’t like). Now I am just going to have to make it again… just to make sure I get it right. Think I might ice with chocolate ganache next time…mmm…
Spice Girl,
I tasted Alex’s cake on the weekend (see comment above) and she used almond meal as well. It was definitely a nicer cake than mine, with a better texture and more tender crumb. I now have to make another one today. Chocolate ganache..hmmm. It’ll work next time, wait and see. :)
Dorie’s book (which is fantastic, by the way), also suggests the following :
– bake the cake in a 9″ x 2″ round pan for 35 – 40 mins, then slice in half and fill with cream, jam, berries etc.
– top the cake with soft stone fruit, berries, lemon curd or chocolate sauces.
I might make this cake and then top it with microwave lemon curd.. :)
Celia
Hi Celia, I had a go at this cake and it looks pretty much like yours, but the batter was very runny and certainly didn’t need levelling as it flowed into the tin. If you get round to making it again, is there any chance of you weighing the ingredients? I am rubbish at using cups. best wishes, Jo
Jo, it’s a pretty runny batter – I jiggle it to level it – so I think you’ve probably got it right. In fact, it’s so runny that whenever I’ve tried to add anything to it, it just sinks straight to the bottom. I once tried to put jam and berries on the top, and they all ended up stuck to the base of the pan. Will try and weigh everything for you next time – I’m not great with cups either, but that’s how the recipe was written by Divine Dorie (plus it’s very consistent with how it’s made in France, where they use the rinsed out yoghurt container to measure the ingredients!).
Having said all that, were you happy with the cake? :)
Celia
If it is a runny batter, then I probably did get it right, I think it is a pretty good cake and as you say fast to make, easy to slice, and tasty too. I found a bottle of lemon oil lurking in my fridge, so I added some of that as well as the vanilla essence. I don’t think I would have thought of combining the two flavours but it definitely works. I think the thing I am least used to is adding oil instead of butter. It reminded me a bit of making muffins, mix the dry, add the wet and away you go! I have been making olive and tomato breads today and revisiting the bread stick recipe in Dan’s HML, as I have just clipped the rosemary bush and also found some frozen mozarella packet liquid in the freezer. Someone once said to use it in bread, so I have kept it for about 6 months and just rediscovered it. So I used it in the bread stick dough, along with a bit of grated hard goats cheese, quark, rosemary, butter etc etc. The dogs are very fond of bread sticks too, can I blame them?
Jo, it is like making muffins, isn’t it? I must check out Dan’s recipe in the book – I’ve been making the ones on his Guardian website. I’ve been playing around with sweet dough – so many things you can do with it!
I’m such a Kumquat fan…and I loved your kumquat jelly. Its such a strange fruit – I call it the ‘stranger within’ cause of the way I started eating it. The glaze looks so lovely. Well done.
Anyhow, it makes a delightfully fragranced citrus oil – which is what I’ve made with it..not blogged it yet but someday perhaps.