Use Greek yogurt for heavenly soft and juicy cakes!
ingredients for 8 servings (total cost about 15€ with organic products)
For the batter
- 120 g cake flour
- 100 g whole grain flour
- 100 g sugar
- 50 g honey
- 3 large eggs
- 185 g yogurt
- 50 ml milk
- 70 g butter, melted
- 10 g EV sunflower oil
- 10 g baking powder
- 1,5 g baking soda
- 2 g salt
- Zest from 1 lemon
- 85 g blueberries or other berries
- 100 g pistachios
For the pistachio royal glaze
- 35 g egg white
- 50 g pistachios
- 1 tsp superfine sugar
- 200 g icing sugar
- 20 ml lemon juice
Greek yogurt, is strained and this way its whey is removed, therefore it has an incredible thick and creamy consistency. When used in cakes it makes them soft and juicy, exactly as I want them. As for the taste, it adds a subtle sourness, that I simply adore. What is more, it is very light in terms of fat (only 8%), just like ricotta.
I make this cake very often. It is complimented by blueberries (but you can use other kind of berries if you can´t find blue ones), honey and pistachios which offer a complexity both to the flavour and to the texture of the cake.
I use a blend of flours, cake flour mixed with whole grain one. Whole grain flour has an amazing taste, which matches wonderfully with the above ingredients.
Oh! One last thing. The pistachio glaze, that I use as a toping, upgrades the cake, adding a … royal touch both to the eye and to the mouth. I know, what you may think: it also adds … extra calories. Well, it’ s true, but believe me, it is worth the sacrifice! In fact, I can think of a friend who would really appreciate it, as he constantly accuses me of making my desserts … “healthy”!
So we begin by whisking the eggs, adding the sugar progressively and we continue whisking, until they become pale white and they triplicate their volume (about 10 minutes).
We add the butter, already melted and mixed with the sunflower oil, then the yogurt, the milk and the honey, stirring well after each addition to incorporate. We will end up with a liquid batter.
We then sieve on top of the mixture the flours, the baking powder, the baking soda and the salt and we mix progressively with a whisk, until the flours are fully incorporated in the batter and no lumps remain.
We pour 1/3 of the batter into a well buttered, lined with parchment, re-buttered and floured rectangular cake tin (in this case I used a 30X10X7 cm diameter cake tin). We spread half of the pistachios (already roasted for 6-8 minutes at 150 o C and coarsely chopped) and half of the berries on top at equal distances. We repeat, pouring the second 1/3 of the batter and spreading on top the remaining pistachios and berries. We finish by pouring the last 1/3 of the cake batter. We gently hit the cake tin on the counter a few times to release trapped air pockets and to leaven the batter.
We bake at a preheated oven at 180 o C for about 40 minutes.
We remove the cake from the oven and after 5-10 minutes we unmould it and we immediately wrap it well with cling film in order to retain its moisture and softness. We let it cool completely, as it is wrapped, before glazing it.
Meanwhile, we prepare the pistachio glaze.
We take 1 teaspoon of the egg white and we pour it over 50 g of pistachios, we stir them with the spoon to humidify them, then we sprinkle them with a teaspoon of superfine sugar, stirring again the pistachios, so that they get perfectly coated by the sugar.
We lay them on a baking tray and we place them in the oven (already lowered to 120 o C), so that the egg white dries and the sugar sticks on the pistachios. After five minutes we turn off the oven and we let the pistachios inside it to continue drying, until they cool completely.
In a bowl we sieve the icing sugar, we add the egg white and the lemon juice and we whisk, until the sugar dissolves completely and we end up with a smooth, opaque white glaze that is neither too thick nor too liquid. If it needs to be thickened we add a little more icing sugar, whereas if it needs to be a little more runny we add a little more lemon juice or water.
We unwrap the cake, we place it on a wire rack, we drizzle it immediately with the prepared glaze and we top with the glazed pistachios. We let the glaze dry and set at room temperature. If our oven has a ventilated function with no heat, we can put it there for about 5-10 minutes to speed up the setting process.
We keep it well wrapped at room temperature.
