French Yogurt Cake
French yogurt cake is an easy cake recipe that is flavored with lemon and ground almonds. It has a tender crumb and is a nice cake to serve with a cup of tea or coffee.
What is it about French desserts and how beautiful and elegant they always look? I love to browse French dessert recipes, so when I found a French Yogurt Cake on My Cookbook Addiction, I was excited to try it. This cake looked pretty as a picture, and it was very easy to make. I opted to skip the glaze and just made the cake.
Ingredients
- All-purpose flour
- Ground almonds
- Baking powder
- Salt
- Sugar
- Lemon zest
- Plain yogurt
- Eggs
- Vanilla extract
- Neutral oil
Almonds: If you can’t find ground almonds, you can blend whole almonds in a food processor until they break down into fine crumbs.
Lemon zest: The key to the lemony cake flavor is lemon zest. I don’t recommend subbing lemon juice – the cake batter will not turn out the same.
Yogurt: I use regular yogurt for this recipe, which is thinner than Greek yogurt. I haven’t tested the recipe with Greek yogurt.
Oil: Use a neutral flavored oil for this recipe, like vegetable oil or canola oil.
How to Make It
I used my 7×3” loaf pan for this recipe, but you can use an 8×4″ loaf pan. You will need to generously grease the pan with butter. This will ensure the cake releases when you turn it out to cool.
To enhance the lemon flavor in the cake, the recipe directs you to combine the sugar and lemon zest together using your fingers. Rubbing the two together distributes the oils from the zest in the sugar, so it’s fragrant and very lemony.
The rest of the cake batter is easy – whisk the flour mixture in one bowl and mix the wet ingredients in another bowl. Then, all you have to do is combine the two together.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake the cake. That’s it.
Taste and Texture of the Cake
I like the texture of the cake – it’s very light.
The cake is not too sweet, which I enjoyed, too. You can easily serve it for breakfast or as a snack cake. If you add the glaze, you could also serve it as a light dessert.
The cake is a little oily to the touch. I think the combination of the oil and ground almonds made this happen. I didn’t love that aspect of the cake, but overall, I think it tasted good.
You can serve slices of this cake plain or add a topping. Confectioner’s sugar, fresh berries, whipped cream, or a small scoop of ice cream would all work well.
The original recipe is from the cookbook Dorie Greenspan Baking: From My Home to Yours. I’ve made World Peace cookies and an almond tea cake from the same book, so I was happy the French yogurt cake recipe was good, too.
More Cake Recipes
- Chocolate Loaf Cake
- 2 Ingredient Yogurt Cake
- Sour Cream Pound Cake
- Chocolate Mug Cake with Chocolate Chips
French Yogurt Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup ground almonds
- 2 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1 cup sugar
- grated zest of 1 lemon
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt
- 3 large eggs
- 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup flavorless oil
Instructions
- Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously butter an 8 ½ x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan and place the pan on a baking sheet. (I used a 7 x 3 loaf pan).
- Whisk together the flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt.
- Put the sugar and zest in a medium bowl and, with your fingertips, rub the zest into the sugar until the sugar is moist and aromatic. Add the yogurt, eggs and vanilla and whisking vigorously until the mixture is very well blended. Still whisking, add the dry ingredients, then switch to a large rubber spatula and fold in the oil. You'll have a thick, smooth batter with a slight sheen. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top.
- Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until the cake begins to come away from the sides of the pan; it should be golden brown and a thin knife inserted into the center will come out clean.
- Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes, then run a blunt knife between the cake and the sides of the pan. Unmold, and cool to room temperature right side up on the rack.
Notes
There’s no nutritional information on this?
We don’t have the nutrition info at this time, but you can easily enter the recipe info into a free online nutrition calculator to get that info.
Thanks!
I love dry cake!! Thanks for this delicious recipe. It sounds easy to make. I would like to make it at valentine day.
Speaking of French goodies, I just posted about Coeur a la Creme.
Your cake looks wonderful!
🙂
ButterYum
I was thinking the same thing! After my cake came out oily, I was thinking back to the folding oil step and remembering how oily it made the batter.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll try it without oil next time.
I love baking with yogurt too. It makes things so moist, and more healthy!
I know what you mean about the oiliness. I think it might have to do with folding oil in the end vs whisking it with the liquid in the beginning
I’d leave the oil out. Yogurt adds enough moistness to the batter that you will never miss the oil, in fact the cake will be better without it. I bake without oil all the time because it upsets the liquid balance and adds unnecessary calories.
I love baking with yogurt cuz you get such a wonderful moist texture. I usually skip the glaze in a recipe too just to make it easier on myself and probably healthier too.
Perhaps I should have made it with the glaze to give it it’s full effect. I agree that it needs less oil or almonds though because I didn’t like how oily it was.
That’s too bad the taste disappointed, because I definitely am drawn to how wonderfully light and fluffy it looks. I wonder if it would be better if you cut a bit of the oil or almonds.