Olive Oil Yogurt Cake

by LimeCake on August 12, 2010

To me, a ‘healthy’ cake is a synonym for ‘diet’ cake, and is almost oxymoronic. When I order cake, I stay away from cakes marketed as being *scoff* healthy. I mean, really, what the heck does it even mean? That the cake is made with artificial, non-caloric sweeteners? That it is low-fat and made of cow fodder wheatgrass or alfalfa sprouts?

Yuck.

Yet somehow, this seems like a healthy cake – in a good way. Maybe it’s the yogurt. Now we all know that yogurt does nice things to pancakes, so it’s no surprise that this quick-bread-cake was incredible too.

Not only are yogurt cakes a cinch to make, the final product is always guaranteed to be super duper moist, and still light at the same time.

And as if we needed more assurance of flavour and moistness, the fruity olive oil and honey lend an extra hand in that department.

It took longer to preheat the oven than prepare the batter. That’s how easy it was.

I ate this warm and crusty, just as suggested. Now what is a synonym for awesome?

Olive Oil and Yogurt Cake (adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini’s Gâteau au Yaourt)

3 eggs

250ml (1 cup) whole milk plain unsweetened yogurt

100g (1/2 cup) sugar

½ cup honey

160ml (1/2 cup) olive oil

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup wholemeal flour (or substitute with all-purpose)

2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

a good pinch of salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla paste/extract

Preheat the oven to 180° C (350° F), line the bottom of a large loaf pan with parchment paper and grease the sides. In a large mixing-bowl, gently combine the yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, oil, and rum. In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture, and blend together — don’t overwork the batter. Pour into the prepared cake pan, and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean. Let stand for ten minutes, and transfer onto a rack to cool.