Light Lemon Cake

This recipe is from Woman’s Day Magazine – 4/1/06

1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
¼ cup lemon juice (grate zest first)
1 1/3 cups sugar
5 Tbsp plus 1 tsp (1/3 cup) butter
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2 large eggs plus white of large egg
2 ¼ cups cake flour

1. Preheat oven to 350'. Coat a 12-cup bundt pan with nonstick spray.

2. Mix yogurt & lemon juice in a small bowl until blended and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, beat sugar, butter, lemon zest, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with mixer on medium speed to blend (mixture will resemble damp sand). Beat in eggs and egg white until smooth. On low speed mix in yogurt, then flour, until just blended. Scrap into pan; smooth top.

4. Bake 30 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in cake comes out clean. Cool in a pan on wire rack 15 minutes before inverting on rack. Serve warm or cool.

Of course being one to have to change it up a bit, I made it a second time and used fresh orange zest and juice instead of the lemon and also adding 1 cup of mini chocolate chips. (Pictured above.)

Like the orange and chocolate combo? See my cookie recipe for Sweet Dark Indulgence.
http://geraniumfarmhodgepodge.blogspot.com/search?q=sweet+dark+indulgence

Sweet Dark Indulgence Cookies

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
finely grated zest from the whole outside of an orange
1 or 2 Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate Bars,
for 5 oz. size you’ll have some left over

Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Beat the butter and both sugars in another medium bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 30 seconds. Add the egg yolks, vanilla and orange zest mixing until fully incorporated. Slowly add the flour mixture, and continue beating until the dough comes together, stopping and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Divide dough in half, roll by hand into 2-inch-wide logs, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 2 hours.
Cut the logs into thin cookies. You can use a wire cheese cutter or a mandoline slicer to get the thin slices.
Cut each rectangle of chocolate in half to make a square that you place between 2 slices of dough. Pinch the dough all the way around. They’ll kind of look like round ravioli. If you make up more while some are baking keep them refrigerated until it’s time to bake them. This makes a thinner crisp cookie. You can also take some dough a little less than the size of a golf ball and place the chocolate in the center of it. The cookies will come out thicker and dome shaped.

(I forgot the vanilla extract once and they were still good because of all the orange zest.)

Bake 375’ for about 10 to 15 minutes until the bottoms are golden brown. Cool on sheets until firm enough to transfer to a rack to cool. Yield: 30 cookies

The dough for these cookies is from a recipe from the Food Network called 3-in-1 Sugar Cookies.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_31961,00.html
I thought they’d be good with the dark chocolate in-between and tried it out. Success! They’re especially good warm with the chocolate all gooey.
A piece of dark orange chocolate would be good too or perhaps an Andes Mint!

D.S.L. 2006