Orange Almond Yogurt Cake

It's been a while. Since my last post many things have happened here in Cairo - not least A REVOLUTION!

Oh yeah and I had a baby :) But that doesn't mean that I haven't been baking - in fact I discovered that I bake more when things are getting stressy... such as that very scary night mid-revolution when the police withdrew from the city - but those are details for another post that involves rice pudding.

Speaking of baby-having, here's a pic of what I mad the day before I went into hospital which doesn't count as a recipe since I used a cake mix, whipped up some cream and added a luscious strawberry on top.

Then came Valentines Day, and I was skint! So I decided, the way to a man's heart must be through his stomach - especially my husband’s - so I lovingly baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes, or Love Cakes as they came to be known. Again using a recipe from my favourite baking site Joy of Baking (JoB) - they came out quite cute looking, especially considering that I was too lazy to make a frosting and decided to decorate them using a stencil and icing sugar instead - although as far as chocolate cupcakes go I have a sneaking suspicion that a better tasting recipe can be found - the search is on. (Sorry JoB.)

In another exciting cookery update (that sounds quite scary) I got a new cookbook freshly delivered by Amazon in the post, mid-revolution, which makes me feel quite proud of the Egyptian Postal Service! The book is by the domestic goddess herself - Nigella Lawson and is called Nigella Kitchen, needless to say I have been studying it heavily at every opportunity i.e. between feedings and nappy changings and doings of 6-yr old homework, only raising my head from its pages momentarily to complain about hubby's excessive laptop use.

From this I made two types of muffin - Chocolate Banana and Apple Cinnamon, both of which were extremely tasty and eaten immediately, hence why there are no pictures. A batch of Everyday Brownies also went down a treat - smothered in vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce no less.

Most recently however, and in another one of my compulsive 'must bake at 10 o'clock at night' fits - I tried a recipe I found on the Smitten Kitchen blog for Lemon Yogurt Anything Cake, which I adapted till the cows came home, and until it evolved into Orange Almond Yogurt Cake, I had a lot of oranges calling out to me from the fruit bowl. I also ran out of flour midway - so I threw some cornmeal in and am really glad I did.

This I highly recommend:

1 cup flour

0.5 cup cornmeal

2 tsp baking powder

0.5 tsp Maldon sea salt (or ¼ tsp of normal salt)

1 cup vanilla yogurt (I used a single package of yogurt)

0.75 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp grated orange zest

0.5 tsp almond extract

0.5 cup oil

To make icing: Mix icing sugar with freshly squeezed orange juice to preferred consistency.

Follow cooking instructions for Lemon Yogurt Anything Cake OR as follows: 

• Preheat the oven to 350°F (about 180 C). Grease loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan.
• Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.
• In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, zest, almond extract and oil.
• Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 (+) minutes, or until a toothpick placed in the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Meanwhile, mix icing sugar with orange juice until you get a paste of the consistency you prefer which you can pour or spread over the cake once its done.
• Allow it to cool first in the pan for 10 minutes before flipping onto a cooling rack.