Variations on a theme, or “The Easiest Cake in the World”

I was originally given this recipe on a post-it-note by a friend/neighbour, and I’ve tweaked it in places, so I’m assuming that I’m not infringing anyone’s copyright by posting it, right??

Not only does this cake have only 5 ingredients (unless you’re ‘mixin it up’) but it can be done with just one bowl and a spatula – leaving you with minimal washing up to do. This cake has never let me down – it has been several birthday cakes, a thank you cake, a take a sweet thing to work cake, a ‘friends are coming round and I have nothing in the house’ cake – you name it.

You will need:

Utensils:

One large baking bowl;

One spatula;

One cake tin of your choice;

Ingredients:

One Yogurt (select the yummiest flavour you can find – I mean a personal size yogurt, not a pint one!)

3 eggs

Cooking oil (not olive!!)

Sugar

Self Raising Flour (or Plain and ½ a tsp each of cream of tartar and baking soda)

Now what you do is this:

Put the oven on to heat to 160 degrees C (trust me)

Dump your yogurt into the bowl – help it on its way with the spatula. Fill the now empty yogurt pot with cooking oil, and dump that in too. Give it a wee mix with your spatula. Crack in 3 eggs – no shells mind! And give the mixture a bit of a mess around – with the spatula. At this point it will look really nasty – but just you wait! At this point WASH your yogurt pot out and dry with kitchen paper and fill it with sugar

– I was going to specify a sugar here, but it really depends on the flavour of your yogurt, for example, if I had a vanilla or a banana yogurt I might use soft brown sugar, if I had a strawberry yogurt I would probably use castor sugar – it’s a very forgiving recipe, the cake will still turn out fine! I’ve even made this cake with Gluten free flour and, bar the slightly nuttier flavour, it made no difference whatsoever!

Anyway – dump your sugar into the bowl and repeat – that’s 2 pots of sugar – not repeat the whole process over again! Beat the mixture again – it should look quite nice now – very liquid but all incorporated and so on. Almost finished!! Now we’re going to add the flour – I use a sieve, but apparently now you don’t have to – guess what you’re going to measure that with? Yup – the yogurt pot! This time you need to add 3 pots (or 3 pots and your cream of tartar and baking soda) and fold it over and over with the spatula a few times (if you beat it right away the flour will go everywhere – trust me) then beat the dickens out of it – takes about 30 seconds to get it nice and smooth again.

Now it’s technically ready to go in the oven, but at this point I like to mess with it! Banana yogurt? Throw in some dried banana or coconut flakes, or raisins! (or a shot of rum)! Hazelnut yogurt? Chopped hazelnuts or a shot of franagelico! Cherry yogurt? CHERRIES! Or chopped almonds, or flaked dark chocolate! Raspberry yogurt? How about 100g of fresh raspberries and a small packet of white chocolate buttons! Honestly – this is the most awesomest cake in the WORLD!!

Don’t leave it sitting around too long once the flour is added, as the raising agents will go a bit strange and not work as well when you put it in the oven. The cooking time will depend on the size of your cake tin – with a slightly larger yogurt

I sometimes split the mixture between 2 small round cake tins (Victoria sponge style) and then sandwich them with a filling. I have also done this with an extremely large yogurt and 3 cake tins!

Anyway – a normal yogurt mix, all in one tin = about an hour. Check it after 50 minutes, and do the sticking a knife in to see if it comes out clean to check its readiness – it can look a bit wobbly still BUT ITS READY! It’s a lovely moist cake – so don’t overcook it!

A normal mix divided into 2 tins takes only 30 minutes usually – but again it will depend on your oven so do your checking!

I used this mix for my cousin’s birthday cake, and the box said it would take a 4 egg mix to fill it – it took a little longer to cook though because the tin is about 5mm thick I think.

I would love to hear if anyone makes my cake!!