Tuesday, March 17, 2009

French Yogurt Cake; Tuesdays With Dorie



This week, Liliana, of My Cookbook Addiction chose French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze on pages 224-225 of Baking, From My Home to Yours.

This recipe was exciting because there were so many "playing around" ideas. I will definitely make this again and try the Riviera version with olive oil and rosemary. I decided to make mine like a party cake, filled with lemon cream and frosted with whipped cream.

I used coconut oil in the cake. Coconut oil can be bought either virgin or refined. Virgin oil smells and tastes coconutty. I used refined oil which is flavorless. Coconut oil can be tricky to bake with because it solidifies at temperatures 76 degrees or cooler.



I melted the oil in the microwave and warmed the batter in a sink of hot water so the oil wouldn't solidify. (I should have added flour to that batter before the oil. Oooops.)



My favorite part of this recipe was rubbing the zest in the sugar. It was so fragrant and pretty.



Here is a mystery though. A few weeks ago, Jennifer made a lemon tart using Dorie's lemon cream. I really did not care for it. It tasted metallic to me. I thought maybe it was an effect of her tart pan, or maybe I am just weird because I do taste metallic sometimes when others don't. I decided to go ahead and make this lemon cream because I had never made it and wanted to give it a try. Out of the blender, it was heavenly. I ate a spoonful and kept scraping the blender to get more. It was soooo good. I almost just ate the whole batch, until I thought about the 10 1/12 ounces of butter I had just put in in there. I refrigerated it and put it between the two cake layers. (I made 2 nine inch cakes.)



When I tried it, it tasted metallic! I loved it fresh and warm, but chilled, it tasted completely different to me. My kids liked it, and my grandma liked it. My husband mentioned the metallic taste, so I don't think it is just me. Once I slathered it with whipped cream though, it toned it down and I enjoyed the cake too.

14 comments:

Rachelle S said...

Ooh it looks great!
I almost made the lemon cream too, but was too lazy. :) Now I'm curious and want to taste it too.

Steph said...

Wow, you went all the way to a layer cake! Great job!! I have to try making lemon curd for a cake some time.

Amanda said...

I've never made that cream, is there cream of tartar in it? Sometimes that leaves a metallic taste. I LOVED this cake, it smelled so good while cooking and tasted wonderful :) I paired it with simple lemon curd. YUM!

Jennifer said...

Your lemon zest looks so pretty. I love lemon zest. (And rasp graters too!)

I don't think it could be the tart pan, as the lemon cream doesn't actually touch the pan.... So I really wonder what it is. To answer Amanda's question the lemon cream doesn't have cream of tartar. It doesn't have baking powder either. Hmm... it's weird.

Jessica said...

That is such a pretty party cake and I bet that it tasted great with the whipped cream slathered on top (I love whipped cream, who doesn't?). I'm sorry that the lemon cream had a metallic taste.

Lauren said...

Liked the photos of the layer cake. The zest looks so, so zesty!!!

chocolatechic said...

Looks great.

I wonder why the metallic taste.

Shari@Whisk: a food blog said...

I bet the coconut oil in this was nice! What a special cake you made.

Jennifer said...

Coconut oil...that sounds really good! Your cake looks spectacular!

spike. said...

The cake looks great! I wonder what gives the cream that metallic taste? wierd

Anonymous said...

I saw virgin coconut oil at the store this weekend and had no idea how it was different from regular coconut oil. Thanks for sharing that tidbit.

Your cake looks gorgeous.

Heather said...

What a pretty cake! I'm not surprised French people use this recipe for Birthday cakes now.

TeaLady said...

Beautiful cake. Wonder what causes that taste. I think I will try lemon curd next time, too. Looks yummy!

Tammy said...

Beautiful cake! It is a neat recipe because there are so many things you can do with it. Neat comments about the coconut oil. I've never cooked with it before.