Friday, October 17, 2008

Orange Yogurt Cake


A show of hands, please, how many of people (on this sunny island, at least) have encountered problems when using cups instead of the weighing scale? Perhaps it's just me but I would like to think that my problem, with the latest yogurt cake, lies not in the size of the cups but most likely in the size of the eggs. I bought this last batch of eggs from the market, 10 for S$2.10. These are likely to be slightly bigger than 60g each.

I know I am not the only person who have problems with this recipe. I used oranges instead of grapefruit. After an earlier unsuccessful attempt with another yogurt cake, I approached this with a proper plan.
  • make a more conscious effort to scoop (and flatten) the 1.5 cups of flour
  • mix the eggs, yogurt and sugar together, then add oil (to prevent over mixing flour later)
  • use the balloon whisk to fold in flour, not more than 15 strokes (a tip I found here, see "Batters")
  • bake at a slightly lower temperature (than 180 deg C).

With all the above checked, I put the tray in to bake. All looked and smelled well, and I drenched the cake with OJ from two oranges. And waited... but I could wait no longer and cut the cake when it was cooled enough.

After uttering a silent prayer, I picked up one piece of cake. I should have suspected when there wasn't any crumbs, it's another kueh :(

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I havent visited your blog in a while too but everything looks delicious as usual~!

Yuri said...

thanks lina, haven't seen u online for a while, how have u been? locked yr blog, huh? :(

Passionate About Baking said...

Hi Yuri,
Sorry to hear about your kueh. :( I would have felt as disappointed as you too! The recipe didn't look suspicious mah...it sure looks like it's pretty easy to achieve. Just like my encounter with Honey Cupcakes! :p Looks, reads & thinks can be deceiving hor? Actually, I'm as uncomfortable as you when it comes to weighing in CUPS! I would usually do a conversion to weight. I'm more comfortable with weights, and feel safer too! My suggestion to you is, maybe you should convert them into grams before you try? Try to convert using this site:http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/cookingconversions.asp?Action=find. It's really good. I usually do that too! Wish you luck in your next baking! Have faith my dear friend! :)

Yuri said...

thanks J. guess what? i tried again last night by adding dried apricots (helps to absorb the extra liquids) and also used creamier Greek yog. the bake was much better!

my last experience when converting cups to grammes is also a failure. second try using cups tend to work better :P

Passionate About Baking said...

Hi Yuri,
Good to know that your 2nd attempt is better. I guess in baking, we cannot stop at 1st attempt right? If we don't try again, we won't know what caused the failure! Minority of the time could be the recipe right? :P Keep up your determination! Don't feel disheartened. ;p

Yuri said...

Thanks again, j. I tried another recipe with butter, and turned out much better. I wrapped it up nicely for my sis-in-law, hoping she'll like it :)