F&P Food Bites – Holly’s ‘Chalet Girl’ Yoghurt Cake Recipe

I needed an emergency birthday cake recipe at the weekend, so I delved into my rather sorry looking baking cupboard and suddenly found myself back in ‘chalet girl’ autopilot.  It’s probably been 10 years since I made one of these (having made one 6 days a week for 3 seasons I had seen enough yoghurt cakes to last a decade it seems!) but it came back to me as if it were yesterday.

I am not a natural baker (that was always Philippa’s forte) but this always served me very well in the chalet – it’s super quick, low maintenance and mess, no weighing scales required and it is extremely versatile!  The pro-bakers of you out there will probably be rolling your eyes at this recipe but if you are like me then finding a speedy, uncomplicated, and fool proof recipe is the only way you’re going to get me baking.  It’s not perfect but it has certainly kept many an F&P guest satisfied!

So here’s my throwback to the ‘chalet girl’ years with the trusty F&P yoghurt cake recipe:

Ingredients:

Base sponge cake

Please note all measurements are in ‘yoghurt pot’ quantities:

• 1 x natural yoghurt
• 1 x caster sugar
• 3 x self-raising or gateaux flour
• 1 x vegetable oil (good quality preferred)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)
• 4 x medium eggs (free range ideally)

Mixing it up with all shapes, sizes and flavours

The beauty of this recipe is that you can either use just the base sponge and dress it up as a simple yet effective Vic Sponge or you can add basically any flavouring you wish (trust us, we experimented on our guests with pretty much any flavour out there!).  You can also serve this as an individual cake, loaf, muffins or cupcakes.  Is there no end to the wonders of the yoghurt cake?!  Flavour ideas:

• Victoria sponge
• Frozen berries & white chocolate muffins
• Lemon drizzle & poppyseed loaf
• Coffee & hazelnut cake
• Chocolate cake with ganache
• Banana & choc chip loaf

Method:

• Preheat oven to fan at 190C
• Take yoghurt pot and empty yoghurt into mixer or mixing bowl
• Add all the basic sponge ingredients into mixer or mixing bowl (use the empty yoghurt pot to measure out the sugar, oil and flour)
• Turn the mixer on or give it some welly with a balloon whisk until the mix is a smooth consistency
• Gently fold in the flavourings
• Butter the cake or muffin tin
• Pour in the mix
• Bake for approximately 20 minutes (muffin tin) or 30 minutes (individual cake) until a knife or skewer comes out clean
• Leave on a rack to cool before icing
• Simples.

Note to selves:

Getting to know your oven is the most important!  Everyone’s oven behaves differently so you might need to trial this once and adjust the time or temperature accordingly.  The key is to make sure you test whether the cake is cooked through by putting a knife or skewer into the centre of the cake – if this comes out clean then it is ready!  So much of cooking is about trial and error in order to perfect the recipe – you will see that I attempted a crumb on top of my berry muffins but it didn’t go the golden brown I wanted, so I shall be adding more butter and sugar to the crumb next time😉

Contact me (Holly) at [email protected] with any questions or feedback.

 

Happy lock down baking 😊 X