The other day Andy and I were catching up on some old DVR’d tv programming, and watched The Amazing Race from a few weeks ago. One of the challenges this week was throwing pies and cakes at your partner’s face, trying to find the cherry filling. And oh my gosh, those desserts looked fantastic. I looked at Andy and told him I had a cake craving. That craving didn’t go away, and when I woke yesterday, I wanted to make cake. Only, I was limited by ingredients on hand. All the cake recipes I was interested in making called for eggs and butter that I didn’t have- I only had two eggs. But then I remembered an Orange Yogurt Cake I made almost a year ago and how wonderful it was. Then I looked at the fruit bowl, and while there are oranges and clementines there, it was the limes that held my attention. Oh my…
So I made my Lime Yogurt Cake. Let me just mention here, that this is one of the fastest cakes to make, ever. I didn’t even really follow the instructions. Literally, I dumped all the ingredients into one bowl and then mixed it up. There was no special combining, no whisking. Just drop everything, stir once, and then put in the pan to bake. Twenty-five minutes later I had a cake cooling on a rack, taunting me with the fact that I needed to wait for it to cool.
Once again, this cake did not disappoint. The lime was spectacular- and I’ll tell you, the cake was fantastic straight up and needed no glaze or frosting or anything. But what was especially delicious was a drizzle of Homemade Strawberry Syrup. We all enjoyed the cake, although I should confess that I almost single-handedly ate the whole thing myself. This is the perfect cake to take care of a craving- it’s moist, tender, flavorful and it can be as rustic or as fancy as you’d like.
Lime Yogurt Cake
juice of 1 lime
1 egg 1/2 teaspoon vanilla Additional lime juice and powdered sugar for glaze (optional)
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease an 8-inch or 9-inch cake pan with cooking spray.
In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to combine.
In a second bowl combine yogurt, oil, zest, orange juice, egg, and vanilla. Mix well. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and fold together. Batter will be quite thick.
Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Bake at 350ºF for 20-25 minutes, depending on the size of your cake pan. The cake is done when it is a golden brown and a toothpick inserted near the middle comes out clean.
Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, and then invert onto a cooling rack. Dust with powdered sugar or glaze to serve. Can be served warm, at room temp, or chilled.
To make a glaze, combine about 1 cup of powdered sugar with 2-3 teaspoons of lime juice. Stir to combine, adding more lime juice if too thick, or adding more powdered sugar if too thin. Spread over the cake and garnish with additional lime zest if desired.
I love reading through all your recipes – it’s painfully obvious that you know SOOOO much more about cooking than I do. What, please tell, is the “zest” of a lime??? And who has limes on hand, anyway? 😉
Rina, the zest is the peel- but not the whole peel. If you take a grater, peeler, or microplane and scrape the lime (lemon, orange, etc.) you want the colored part of the peel- but not the pith- the white bitter part underneath. You also want it finely chopped- a microplane will do that for you automatically, but if you use a veg peeler and have larger strips, run them through a knife a few times to chop them up. It adds soooo much flavor to baked goods.
Believe it or not, if I have limes around, I’ll use them a lot- even as a squeeze in a glass of water for something different to drink. So when they look good, and are inexpensive, I’ll pick a bunch up. Last time I paid $1.50 for 10, that’s not too bad.
Hmmm… I don’t think I have any microplanes (?!) lying around here either. 🙂
LOL! Does your hubby do any woodworking? A rasp (used to finely sand sharp edges of wood) would make an excellent microplane. In fact, I suspect that’s exactly how the microplane came about. The very fine holes on a box grater work too- although those tend to be a pain to clean, but work in a pinch.
I have no idea what a rasp is, but my husband says we have one. So the next time I have a few extra limes in my pantry… 🙂
ROFL! Oh my gosh, I can just see that conversation! Lol! Make sure you wash it first… 😉