It's a cake walk!!

There is no good reason not to bake a cake. Or, for that matter, to eat one. Cakes are delicious. My favourite ones are moist, sweet (but not cloyingly, Aspartame-y sweet), dense and preferably with as much chocolate as I can get.  I love cakes with icing, with ganache, with cream cheese frosting; cakes with fruit fillings, custard fillings, and no fillings at all. I can eat them all the time, and have been known to pick at a piece of cake for hours, though I will only take a bit at a time – after all, I only want “half”. But after what feels like thousands hours of mind-numbing lab work, I wanted to make something that would make it all seem worth it. After all, how better to end your day than with a big, warm, chocolate-y piece of freshly caked cake?


So this week, I decided to bake a cake. Perhaps as a tool for procrastination, or perhaps because I was craving something unhealthy after an oh-so-healthy week – who knows, and does it really matter? Ostensibly, this cake was for potluck party, hosted by a friend of mine who is leaving for Vancouver in a month’s time. In reality, I made it for more selfish reasons…..

This recipe is from one of my favorite blogs, SmittenKitchen. I substituted 2% plain yogurt for sour cream and the recipe was divine. A note: 1 used an 8 inch round pan and it overflowed (much to my content, as it meant that I could gobble up the gooey baked pieces as it cooked without ruining the final product), but I would suggest using an 9X13 square pan. Alternatively (and I am not sure how well this will work), you can use smaller pans and make mini loaves or, perhaps, muffins?

Chocolate chip yogurt cinnamon cake
Modified from Smitten Kitchen

Cake
-       ½ cup margarine
-       1 ½ cups of granulated sugar
-       3 large eggs, separated
-       1 /12 tsp vanilla extract
-       2 cups yogurt (I used 2%)
-       3 cups all-purpose flour
-       1 tsp baking powder
-       1 ½ tsp baking soda
-       ¾ tsp salt

Filling and topping
-       2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips
-       ½ cup granulated sugar
-       1 tsp cinnamon


1.    Preheat the oven to 350F and grease your pan well. Set aside
2.     In a large bowl, cream 1 ½ cups of sugar and butter.
3.     Beat in eggs yolks and vanilla.
4.     In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
5.     Add flour mixture to wet mixture, alternating with yogurt, until well combined. The batter will be very thick! (and really tasty… not that I would know)
6.     In a small bowl, whisk together ½ cup sugar and cinnamon
7.     Add half of the batter to your prepared pan and spread so that it is relatively smooth. Sprinkle half of the cinnamon sugar mixture on top of the batter, and add 1 cup of chocolate chips.
8.     Ad the remaining batter on top, spread very gently, and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar and chocolate chips. With the palm of your hand, very carefully push the chocolate chips down so that they sink just a little bit, to make sure that they don’t pop out during the baking process.
9.     Bake for 40-50 minutes, rotating the pan halfway. Remove from the oven, let cool (or not) and enjoy! Bonus points if you share with your friends. 
Words escape me.



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