One Bowl Yogurt Cake: layered with peaches or as a loaf

You can mix this batter in the time it takes your oven to pre-heat (in one bowl!) and it's what you want to eat with summer fruit and whipped cream

This yogurt cake makes a gorgeous, bouncy layer without any xanthan gum (which is usually how you get that effect), and it’s everything I want in a cake–it’s made with ingredients I always have on hand, made in ONE BOWL, it’s moist, and really versatile. I tried it in 9-inch rounds as well as a loaf and it works perfectly and you don’t have to change the quantity for either. I’ll use the loaf to cut into chunks and mix into strawberry ice cream that I’m making.

The recipe is based on a traditional French cake that uses the container that a small yogurt comes in to measure all of the ingredients, and has an easily remembered ratio, so you don’t even have to write the recipe out. I’ve seen 1-2-3 for 1 container yogurt : 2 containers sugar : 3 containers flour + 1 container oil + 3 eggs + 1 Tbs baking powder. Like with pound cake, there’s lots of variations on that ratio, though. I found that the cake was a bit too oily for my taste considering you have richness from eggs and whole milk yogurt, so I cut that down, and GF flour is more absorbent than wheat, so that ratio is adjusted. I dispensed with measuring in containers due to the adjustments I made.

Measuring from containers you have on hand reminds me of when I worked at Montrachet in the early ‘90s (a restaurant in NYC, now closed), and they often used a similar method for measurement for savory dishes (never for desserts, though), but they used Chinese take-out containers, so instructions were like “2 Chinese of chopped onions, 1 Chinese chopped carrots, and 1 Chinese chopped celery, and mix with 6 Chinese beef stock”. I liked that method when working with large quantities.

This cake is two more things, if I haven’t sold you on it enough yet—I’d nickname it “Travel Cake” because you don’t need any special equipment and the ingredients can be found anywhere (and the cake travels well), or “Cake-to-make-with-kids” because you don’t have to separate eggs or do anything fiddly or even follow a particular order to add ingredients. Dump all wet together, whisk, dump in dry ingredients, whisk, bake.

This cake is sweeter and moister than a cake like genoise/sponge, so you don’t have to use a “soaker” on the cake (simple syrup with flavoring) and because it’s on the sweeter side, I use barely sweetened whipped cream to layer the cake with.

Without further ado!

Clockwise from top left: yogurt cake baked in loaf pan; sliced peaches arranged over bottom cake layer spread with peach jam; cake on pedestal, cake decorated with wild roses, rose hips, peach jam and sliced peaches; cross-section of cake