Who would like a slice? 

I must say this was one the moistest and densest cakes I’ve ever made, it was so good that the night I made I stopped myself from having a third slice.  When I brought it over to my mom’s it was gone in a flash.

I am not much of a baker as I used to be, I remember when I was in my early teen I used to bake so many cakes.  I had become an expert, but once I stopped I lost my touch.  So I promised myself this year that I would give baking a ‘GOOD amount of time to try.’  Oh did I tell you I tried to make bread over Christmas weekend, but I could not get my yeast to start. I cried, my husband laughed at me, my mom told me to add some sugar into my next yeast batch.  That was a funny day! Well that will a post soon! After 3 tries I had an active yeast!!! Ahh the agony!

So back to the cake, their is this Turkish blog I often read, Portakal Agaci, Hatice the writer is a well known blogger in the Turkish Food Blogging  world.  This month she is hosting a bakers challenge; recipes containing and made with the ingredient orange.  I though maybe I would post an entry, but need a recipe that I would enjoy making.  Then I found this great Orange Yogurt cake recipe from Ina Garten cookbook.  Then I though ”yogurt” great Turkish ingredient and ”Orange” the right ingredient = a great cake.  Did I mention, I love Ina Garten’s recipes, one day I would love to do a cooking series with her.  A girl can dream right!!!

Ingredients
     ~ Recipe adapted from Ina Garten Lemon Yogurt Cake

• 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 cup of plain whole milk yogurt
  ~ I used home made yogurt
• 1 cup + 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 3 teaspoons of grated orange
  ~ 1 large orange – grate the whole orange
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  ~ I used Turkish powder vanilla & it works just as fine
• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice

Preparation

1.   Preheat you oven to 350 degrees.  Grease any kind of a pan you like, works best in a loaf pan.  I coated the bottom of my loaf pan with a good amount cooking spray.

2.   In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. (Since I used dry vanilla I incorporated it into this mixture.)

3.   In another large mixing bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, the eggs, orange zest and vanilla.

4.   Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into wet ingredients.  (the mixture might look to liquidy  - this is all right)

5.   Finally fold in the vegetable oil into batter, making sure it’s all incorporated.

6.   Pour the batter into your greased pan and bake for 50 minutes or until a cake tester placed in to the center of the loaf come out clean.

7.   Once the cake is cooked, allow it to cool down in the pan for 10 minutes.   Carefully remove the cake from the pan.

8.   While the cake is cooling, in a small sauce pot, bring to broil the 1/3 cup of orange juice with 1 tablespoon of sugar – cook until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear and looks like a syrup.

9.   While the cake is still warm, pour the orange – sugar syrup mixture over the cake allowing the cake to soak in.

10. Serve as you wish! Goes great with coffee or tea.

Later on I found different versions of this cake made with grapefruit and its juice.  I will try this next! Enjoy! 

The cake also has a glaze made with confectionery sugar but I opted not to glaze the cake.

I apologize for the delay – my desktop at home crashed again and I was not able to use it all this weekend.  I winded re typing everything on my husband’s laptop.  I abuse my desktop way too much! LOL   

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Tags: cake, easy, ina garten, orange, Yogurt