1) Orange Yogurt Cake
In recent years, I've strictly purchased Astro's Balkan yogurt to pair alongside homemade granola. Its tanginess complements the crunchy, hearty profile of nuts, seeds, and oats, while its texture loose enough to crumble readily for seamless spoonfuls of yogurt and granola. Activia's vanilla yogurt did not provide the same eating experience. Despite bearing lovely base notes of aromatic vanilla, the texture was lumpy and seemingly synthetic. By reading the ingredient list, I confirmed this was indeed the case: starch stabilizer was the culprit behind the off-putting consistency.
Naturally, the next step was to deplete the container in a manner that did not involve direct consumption. I turned to SK's Grapefruit Yogurt Cake.
The instructions were read with haste, thus compromising accuracy of the steps. My version used two bowls, along with application of cake-making principles that may or may not reveal their worth in the final product. For clarity sake, both the ingredient list and process are detailed below:
Ingredients:
i) Loaf
- Zest of one orange
- 200 g granulated sugar
- 3 eggs
- vanilla extract
- 230 g plain yogurt
- 195 g AP flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 120 g canola oil
- 1/3 cup fresh orange juice
- 2 tbsp granulated sugar *
- Preheat oven to 375 F and line a loaf pan with parchment paper.
- Combine orange zest and granulated sugar in a large bowl. Mix well to ensure comprehensive infusion of the sugar. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and oil together, forming a paste. This process coats the flour particles in fat before mixing with liquid, which enhances tenderness and prevents gluten formation in recipes with a high proportion of liquid. Set aside.
- Add eggs into the orange zest-sugar mixture. Beat well to aerate. Add in yogurt and mix well.
- Add flour-oil paste into aerated egg-yogurt mixture. Fold to combine.
- Transfer to lined loaf pan. Bake at 375 F for 10 minutes, then 360 F for 50-55 minutes, or until the top is golden and a skewer comes out clean.
- Let cool.
- If using orange syrup, combine orange juice and granulated sugar in a pitcher. Heat until sugar is dissolved. Strain pulp from syrup if necessary. Set aside.
- Poke holes on the top of the loaf. Line a tray with plastic wrap (ideally 2-3 layers for insurance) and transfer the loaf onto the plastic wrap.
- Slowly immerse the loaf with orange syrup, ensuring complete coverage before pouring a second layer. Some of the syrup may spill onto the side, however this is not an issue.
- Wrap the loaf in the plastic wrap and leave at room temperature to hydrate for 3-4 hours. Unwrap and slice.
- Serve and enjoy!
- Coating the flour with fat first is technique used in both pound cakes (flour-batter method) and airy chiffon cakes to ensure tenderness. While not specified in SK's recipe, I opted for this method having seen success in my many iterations of the Condensed Milk Pound Cake, my splendidly voluminous chiffon cakes from Sheldo's Kitchen, and the fact that I would be using a neutral gluten content AP flour instead of cake flour. In addition, forming a homogenous flour-oil paste eliminates the need to sift the flour while keeping lumps at bay.
- Aerating eggs with sugar is a crucial component of cakes without chemical leaveners. SK uses baking powder in this recipe, thus nixing the need for complete aeration. Generally, my personal preference lies with the uniform structure and finer air pockets promised by stabilized eggs over the erratic and asymmetrical air pockets caused by chemical leaveners. Adhering to these self-imposed BMPs, I found the crumb to be more uniform than if solely relying on the raising power of baking powder.
- SK uses a juicer and saucepot to create the syrup, however these tools are not strictly necessary, especially for one mere orange. I took to manually juicing one large orange, mixing with 2 tbsp of granulated sugar in a Pyrex beaker and microwaving until the mixture bubbled slightly and all sugar granules dissolved. Finally, I strained the pulp from the syrup. The total yield for one large orange was 1/2 cup of juice. Seeing as the recipe only called for 1/3 cup, I did not exceed this amount in fear of rendering the loaf soggy and lifeless.
- For those looking to simplify their lives, a 50/50 combination of a simple syrup with orange extract and pulp-free orange juice may induce more potency with less effort. That said, it is not recommended to only use orange juice as it is likely to mask the aromas of the finished cake without adequate hydration of the crumb.
But one bite of the cooled loaf changed my mind. It was excessively zesty and even slightly bitter, yet devoid of the aromatic, citrusy tingle I had anticipated. The syrup was deemed necessary after all. The icing not so much.
It's undoubtedly been a while since the last iteration of Marbled Banana Bread. Alas, given that freezer inventory had been steadily depleted over the course of the holidays, I refrained from replenishing the stash until further notice.
As space returned, I began my preparations accordingly. Lean, green bananas from Walmart would be observed for about one week. The bunch was exceptionally budget-friendly at just thirty-eight cents per pound, albeit rather thin for the purposes of baking. Each weighed in at around 90 g - a whopping 44% less than the usual 130 g. Consequently, I was unable to assemble my usual marbled duo. Four out of six small bananas would be utilized for one loaf.
- homemade vanilla extract
- cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg, and apple pie spice
- a combination of turbinado and gingerbread cookie sugar to finish
While visually estimating a half portion of batter was unnerving, I somehow succeeded with two evenly-mixed bowls without traces of excess gluten formation.
Undetectable in influence were the gingerbread cookie sugar. But of course, the resulting loaf was predictably delicious, in addition to featuring one of the most visually pleasing swirled cross-sections to date!
- 160 g pecan halves
- 180 g unsalted butter, softened
- 100 g granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 240 g AP flour *
- 40 g cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (optional)
- pinch of salt
- Toast pecans at 350 F for 5 minutes. Let cool then roughly chop into 0.5 - 1.0 cm pieces or slivers. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 365 F and line two cookie sheets with Silpat or parchment paper.
- Cream softened butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add in egg one at a time, whisking until homogenous. Add in vanilla.
- Add flour, cocoa powder, cream of tartar, and salt. Fold until partially incorporated. Add in toasted, chopped pecan and mix until uniform. Be mindful of streaks of butter or unmixed flour at the bottom of the bowl.
- Form two logs, roughly 1 inch in diameter. Shape the logs using parchment, then wrap the entire package in cling film to prevent the ends from drying out. Refrigerate for a minimum of 2.5 h, but ideally 3h, as specified by Sunday.
- Remove cling film and parchment wrappers and cut into 1 cm thick slices using a dough cutter.
- Arrange cookies on lined cookie sheets, with no more than 1/2 inch space between. These cookies hardly spread, thus do not need much clearance.
- Bake for 365 F for 15-17 minutes, or until the tops cease to bubble and the nuts adopt a golden glow.
- Let cool for at least 15 minutes.
- Serve and enjoy!
Yield: 70 cookies, with dimensions of 4.5 cm (width) x 3.0 cm (height) x 1.0 cm (thickness)
- I added both eggs and vanilla extract at the same time, causing the batter to separate quite a bit. As with most cookie recipes, room temperature eggs and slow incorporation is recommended.
- It is not recommended to add more than the specified amount of nuts to this recipe. The current ratio of dough to nuts grants crunch without excessive chewing.
- Sunday's original recipe does not utilize any raising agents. Omitted from the ingredient list are baking powder and baking soda. In fear that I may have overworked the gluten, I added a pinch of cream of tartar in hopes of achiever a taller cookie with more snap than density. The resulting rounds did not exhibit any noticeable airiness, thus concluding that cream of tartar can be omitted entirely.
- For a double batch, I'd highly recommend compiling the dough in a stand mixer. Sunday notes the dough to be soft; in addition to this, I also noted the dough to be tough to work with (ie. difficult to fold in flour) following the addition of eggs. Neither a silicon spatula nor wooden spoon assisted much, thus one should turn to mechanized equipment if available.
- While Sunday uses the front end of a chef's knife to portion the cookies, I tend to find knives more difficult in achieving uniform thickness. An IKEA dough cutter works best for those with naturally poor portioning abilities, such as myself. (Of course, my cutting skills will never be flawless, but I digress.)
- For most cookies, I tend to summon a wire rack to cool their undersides. This cookie did not require additional air circulation and firmed up nicely even while residing on their respective trays.
- If desired, these cookies could be dunked halfway into tempered chocolate to intensify their cocoa-forward profile. That said, they are scrumptious on their own and I did not feel a need to undertake this step.
We truly missed GOT7.