Lemony Yogurt Cake and Lemon Curd

Although I am not one of the blogroll members of Tuesdays with Dorie, I do follow their adventures for inspiration. I am also influenced by the blogs of my cooking friends--their quest for the best is infectious. This week my incentive for baking was sparked by TWD's French Yogurt Cake, as featured by HoneyB, and LadyJayPee's Meyer Lemon Curd.

HoneyB gave the French Yogurt Cake an "eh", but her hubby, Grumpy, liked it. In spite of my respect for HoneyB's assessment, I know she does not have the carbo-sweet tooth that I do, and if Grumpy likes it, it must be good.

The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours, and I located the recipe using Amazon's Click-to-Look-Inside feature. My only change was to reduce the oil to 1/3 cup. I loved the instruction to "rub the zest into the sugar until the sugar is moist and aromatic" and would highly recommend incorporating this step into any recipe with sugar and zest. The aroma is heavenly.


The cake baked for the full amount of time, and the only flaw was a very slightly deflated center--probably due to my opening the oven door too often to check on it!


HoneyB found the cake to be a bit too sweet (is there such a thing?) with her special icing, and I did not have lemon marmalade to make the glaze specified by the recipe, so I decided to brush on Tart Lemon Glaze, recipe found on the Sunkist website. The glaze is wonderful, but the cake is perfect unadorned.


I would recommend eating this cake the day after baking. The first day it was a bit dry, and the predominant taste was of baking powder. However, today is another matter. Overnight, the baking powder flavor mellowed out, moistness has spread throughout, and it has become, as my Daddy used to say, "good cake". The texture is a mix of sponge cake, pound cake, and quickbread, with a medium crumb that will be perfect for strawberries and whipped cream. The sweetness is subtle, and the loaf-shape makes it entirely too easy to keep cutting small pieces to snack on.


To add another lemony dimension to my day, I made lemon curd from the Eating, Etc blog. I juiced a lemon and a lime to compensate for not finding Meyer lemons in my area, and I used Plugra butter. I followed Lady JayPee's instructions to the letter, even pulling out my Mom's old double boiler.


The curd came together perfectly, and after cooling it for a total of 30 seconds I tasted it--it was eyes-rolling-back good! After cooling, it thickened beautifully and became perfect for filling or eating with a spoon. It is delicious on the Yogurt Cake.


Here is the recipe for the cake, with my modifications:

French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze
1-1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup oil

1/2 cup lemon marmalade, strained
1 teaspoon water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter 8-1/2 X 4-1/2 inch loaf pan and place a piece of parchment paper on the bottom.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

Put sugar and zest in mixing bowl; rub zest into the sugar till sugar is moist and aromatic. Add yogurt, eggs and vanilla and whisk vigorously till mixture is very well blended. Still whisking, add dry ingredients; fold in oil with spatula, blending very well until oil is incorporated. Batter will be thick and smooth. Scrape batter into pan and smooth top.

Bake for 50-55 minutes or until cake begins to come away from sides of pan—should be golden brown and cake tester inserted will come out clean. Transfer pan to rack and cool for 5 minutes, then remove. Cool on wire rack to room temperature, right side up.

Lemon Marmalade Glaze:
Put marmalade in small saucepan and stir in teaspoon of water. Heat till jelly is hot and liquefied. Using pastry brush, brush cake with glaze.

Crumb Cake Scones

In spite of my love of cookbooks and my collecting addiction, I had not found a true favorite in several years until I purchased A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman.

One of the many things I love about this cookbook is the fact that her mouth-watering pictures are not sterile, crumb-free renditions of her recipes but instead reveal all the nooks and crannies and non-perfect edges that "normal" bakers achieve. Her photos scream "freshly made" with drips of icing and those moist-looking crumbs that you like to mash with your thumb and eat. She also includes photos of step-by-step techniques for her easy to follow recipe instructions. The introductory "Baking Secrets" is a great read--I felt an immediate affinity with her unpretentious modus operandi.


Each month, I bake variations of one of her scone recipes for a customer, and this past week I dreamed up crumb cake scones.


Here is the recipe:

Crumb Cake Scones

Basic Scones
3 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder

3/4 cup cold unsalted butter (1-1/2 sticks), cut into small cubes

2 large eggs, slightly whisked
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

Crumb Topping:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup flour

In a small bowl, combine topping ingredients. Blend with fork or pastry blender to cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Set aside.

Whisk eggs slightly, add vanilla and cream. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Add flour, sugar, salt and baking powder to a food processor and process briefly. Add butter and pulse till mixture has little lumps the size of peas. Put mixture into large bowl and make a well in the center. Mix together whisked eggs, vanilla & cream and add to flour mixture; mix lightly, adding cream if necessary, to make a soft but firm dough, (I use my hands for this). Knead lightly and briefly. Dough will be like a nice cookie dough.

Divide dough into 2 parts. Place one part on floured board & pat into rectangle approximately 12 inches long by 5 inches wide. Sprinkle on half of crumb topping, pressing lightly into dough. On another floured surface, pat remaining half of dough into same size rectangle. Carefully lift with floured hands and floured spatula or baker’s bench knife and place on top of crumb-topped half. Lightly pinch edges to seal. Sprinkle on remaining crumb topping and very lightly press into dough.

To form scones, cut dough in half (I measure and use a baker’s bench knife). Divide each half into thirds and cut each third diagonally to make 12 scones. Carefully lift each scone with floured spatula or bench knife and place 6 scones on each baking sheet, making sure edges are together.

Bake till lightly browned, about 15-20 minutes, switching pans from top to bottom halfway during baking time.

Carefully remove scones to wire rack to cool for about 15 minutes, then finish with a glaze made from powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla, or use this recipe.

Bread Stalker

A few months ago, I became a follower of The Spiced Life. Laura shares stories of her life as a backdrop to some very appealing recipes, but it is her bread recipes that I stalk, and I've tried two of them with great success.

When I first bit into Maple Oatmeal Bread it immediately became one of the finest breads on the planet. The dough rises cooperatively high. The texture is tender, plumped with whole oats. The taste is slightly sweet and the fragrance hints of syrup--it makes my kitchen smell like pancakes. The recipe lists maple syrup as the signature ingredient, but maple syrup is more expensive than gold here in Oklahoma, so I substitute Griffin's Waffle Syrup. I would like to try this recipe with real maple syrup to see how it affects the flavor. I made a loaf of bread and rolls.


Buttermilk Cheddar Bread is the bread I made yesterday, and it was perfect for roast beef sandwiches. With one and one-half cups of cheese and one and one-fourth cups of buttermilk, the tanginess is what makes this bread special. The flecks of cheese in the dough baked into an attractive dark brown crust that is irresistibly cheddary.

My substitutions were honey for the sugar and a three-cheese blend instead of sharp cheddar. I used King Arthur Flour's SAF Gold Instant Yeast for the first time. The yeast, designed to give a "long, strong, steady rise", did just that, yielding a nicely textured loaf, which sliced easily and held up well to sandwich ingredients.

Here are the recipes with my modifications:

MAPLE OAT BREAD
I made a loaf and about one dozen rolls

2-1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup rolled oats
1 tablespoon instant dry yeast
3/4 cup pancake syrup
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon butter, melted
1-1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3 cups unbleached flour

In large mixing bowl pour boiling water over oats. Let sit 30 minutes. Add syrup, salt, and butter, and stir. Cool to lukewarm, add dry yeast and whole wheat flour. Beat on medium speed two minutes, until well combined.

Add flour slowly until dough forms a rough, shaggy mass. Let sit 20 minutes then switch to dough hook and add flour until dough clears sides of bowl or until smooth and elastic. Transfer dough to large oiled bowl and cover; let rise one hour or until doubled.

Grease a 9" x 5" pan. Divide dough in half and shape each half into loaf. Place in bread pans, cover, and let rise 45 minutes or until dough has risen above edges of pan. When dough is close to risen, preheat oven to 350 degrees.


BUTTERMILK CHEESE BREAD
Makes one 9" X 5" loaf

3-1/2 - 4 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tablespoons yeast
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons honey
3/4 cup hot water (120 to 130 degrees)
1-1/4 cups buttermilk, room temperature
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese
1 tablespoon salted butter

In mixing bowl whisk 1 cup unbleached flour, whole wheat flour, yeast, baking powder, and salt. Mix hot water, honey, and buttermilk, add to flour, and beat 3 minutes until smooth. Scrape down the sides of bowl and stir in cheese. Add remaining flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until dough forms a rough mass; switch to dough hook and mix until dough clears the sides of the bowl, about 5 minutes. Place dough in greased bowl, cover, and allow to rise about 1 hour, or until doubled.

Shape dough into loaf and place in prepared pan. Cover and allow to rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375, then place pan on low shelf to keep bread from browning too quickly. Loaves are done when deep brown and pull away from sides of pan, about 40 minutes.

When bread is done, brush with melted butter. After 5 minutes loosen sides and turn onto wire rack to cool.