The secret of a successful after school snack
The words “Mom/Dad, I’m hungry” are arguably the most heard by the parents of the world. Especially in the mid-afternoon!
In France there is a sacred hour at around 4 o’clock in the afternoon: the “Goûter” e.a the mid-afternoon snack that is officially considered a fourth mealtime of the day. I was completely unaware of it and failed miserably as a proper mom the first few weeks of elementary school of my oldest daughter. Every single mom or babysitter who came to pick up the other kids pulled a snack out of their bag right in front of the school. It was 4:30 PM and the Goûter would not wait until getting home!
Now, during my meal prep time I try to always make some cookies or sponge cake or muffins for those perilous moments. I really do not like sponsoring the big cookie-companies just so my kids wouldn’t feel left out at the goûter-time. The following recipe is the all-time easiest cake/muffin recipe you can find. You can customize it any way you want or leave it plain vanilla which is in itself absolutely delicious.
Yogurt cake recipe
The measure in this recipe is the little individual container the yogurt is sold here in France. It does not have to be exactly this size – just use the same measure everywhere you read the word container 🙂
Ingredients
- 1 container of natural plain yogurt (125 ml = ½ cup)
- 2 containers (1 cup) of sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 container (½ cup) of neutral oil (sunflower in my case)
- 3 containers (1 ½ cups) of flour
- 1 tbsp of vanilla extract (or to taste)
- 1 tbsp of baking powder
- Pinch of salt
Instructions
Heat up oven to 180 C (375 F).
Mix together the yogurt, sugar, vanilla and eggs (by hand or in your stand mixer). Add the oil, mix well. Add flour and baking powder. Mix again and you’re done with the batter!
Pour the whole batch in a greased loaf pan of divide it in muffin tins. I use liners in metal muffin tins but you can very well just grease them and dust with a bit of flour the silicon tins can be used without any additional non-stick treatment.
The loaf will take about 35-40 minutes to bake and the muffins around 20-25 minutes. It depends a bit of your oven. To test the doneness you can insert a toothpick in the center of the loaf or a muffin and if it comes out clean, the cake is ready to come out of the oven. Let cool about 10 minutes in the pan or tins.
And this is the bases for your imagination. You can add all sorts of toppings to this. But you don’t have to, it is really nice just plain like that with a cup of tea on a chilly autumn afternoon.
The different versions we have made recently:
- Chocolate (add 3 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder).
- Marble (alternate white batter and chocolate batter to create marble effect.
- Apple and fall spices (add finely chopped apple and a few tbsp of pumpkin spice).
- Lemon and poppy seeds (add the juice and the zest of a lemon, 1 tbsp of flour to even out the added liquid and 2-3 tbsp of poppy seeds).
- Blueberry (add a few handfuls of frozen blueberries).
- Nuts and dried fruit (add chopped up walnuts or pecans and small chunks of dried fruit like apricots, raisins or figs, whatever you prefer).
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KAGU CUISINE 