Gateau au Yaourt

Dear Pamela Druckerman,

Thank you for writing the awesome book Bringing up Bebe. I read it when my bebe was a few months old, and I've been making people read it ever since. I love learning about how other cultures view parenting (which is why I also liked this book [Mom -- I put these links on here so you can click on them and order these books from the library! just sayin.]). 

Before I read your book, I thought that I was going to hate French parenting. But I found out that I'm more of a French parent than I thought. I totally agree that cooking with toddlers is awesome, if messy; I think that my early start with cooking (especially baking) is why I love it so much as an adult. (And by early start, I mean: what's not to love about sitting in the high chair eating chocolate chips and watching your parents bake?)

Now that my youngest constituent is old enough to really "help" in the kitchen, I wanted to try your recipe for Gateau au Yaourt. First of all, I love baking with yogurt. And I love that the yogurt cup is the measuring device for this 1-2-3 cake. 

Here is your recipe: 

Ingredients

• 2 six-ounce containers of plain whole-milk yogurt (use the empty containers to measure other ingredients)
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sugar (or just one, depending on how sweet you like it)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Just under 1 container of vegetable oil
• 4 containers flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• Creme fraiche, enough to dollop (optional)

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 375 F
• Use vegetable oil to grease a 9-inch round cake pan or loaf pan.
• Gently combine the yogurt, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and oil. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients; mix gently until ingredients are just combined (don't overmix). You can add two containers of frozen berries, a container of chocolate chips, or any flavoring you like.
• Bake for 35 minutes, then five minutes more if the cake doesn't pass the knife test. It should be almost crispy on the outside, but springy on the inside. Let it cool. The cake is delicious served with tea and a dollop of crème fraîche.

Here are my notes: 

- I used a 1-cup measuring cup instead of the 6-oz container and the ratios worked out fine (if I had increased it more, I would have also increased the eggs, etc)

- I used canola oil and that was fine

- Why would you want to only use one cup of sugar instead of two? Oh, because you are French

- I used 3.5 containers of flour and .5 container of cocoa

- I made 24 cupcakes (use cupcake papers), and baked them for 15 minutes

- Next time, I'm going to try it without eggs, since I don't usually have eggs

- I will also probably try it with whole wheat flour, but I know that you are too French to understand why I would possibly want to do that (actually, I really like the taste of whole wheat flour in baking; I'm not doing it because I am a health nut [obviously])

Hasta la Vi--I mean, Au Revoir,

Tofu