Lemon yogurt cake

I had drooled over Ina's recipes for lemon cake and lemon yogurt cake for years. (She put the lemon cake recipe in 2001's Barefoot Contessa Parties, then revised it into a healthier version, lemon yogurt cake, five years later for Barefoot Contessa at Home.)

I decided to finally make some of the lemon yogurt cake to put into a basket of homemade goodies for my cousin's engagement party tonight. It's healthier, because it uses yogurt and vegetable oil instead of butter, and I had all of the ingredients already.

The cake is amazingly easy to make. You take two bowls and mix your wet and dry ingredients in the separate bowls. Wet: plain whole milk yogurt, sugar, eggs, lemon zest, and vanilla. Dry: flour, baking powder, and salt. Then you whisk them all together and fold in the vegetable oil. Pour it all into a greased pan and bake.


After that, you juice some lemons and mix the juice with sugar, then pour the mixture over the semi-cooled cake. The cake soaks it up and becomes even more deliciously lemony.


Then after it's completely cooled, you pour the glaze - lemon juice and confectioners' sugar - over the cake. Mmm.


I mentioned my ingredients earlier, and I thought I would note how proud I am of my healthy lineup. I used organic whole milk yogurt, free-range Amish eggs, and Smart Balance vegetable oil. I not only want to consume healthy, happy things like this, but I also want to support the companies that make them.