Strawberry- Yogurt cake

The first cake in the year had to be special. It being the strawberry season, this was a good starting point. So without much ado, lets dive in into the recipe. I hope you give this fruit cake a try and make a few cakes for your loved ones. Please read the notes section as I have put in some of my own learnings to help you make it a successful bake.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups maida
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup curd/dahi/yogurt
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup strawberries, few sliced and rest chopped

Method:

Sift the maida with the baking powder and baking soda to ensure that it is mixed well—keep aside.

In a mixing bowl, add curd, milk, oil, sugar and lemon zest. Beat it with an egg beater or hand mixer (depending on what is available with you) until the sugar dissolves.

Add the dry Maida mixture to the wet mixture slowly and mix ensuring there are no lumps. Do not over mix. If you see any lumps just use the egg beater for a couple of rounds, the lumps will go.

Add the vanilla extract and chopped strawberries to the batter. Arrange the strawberry slices on top.

Pour into a 9″ cake pan and bake in a pre heated oven at 175 degrees for 40-45 mins. or until done.

Once done, leave in the oven to cool and then cut into slices once the cake has cooled.

Notes:

All cakes have 4 standard things- Maida, eggs, fat and sugar. You either use them or a substitute for each. That forms the base of the cake and then all added flavours are what you can keep changing over time and testing to make your own recipes. We have substituted a few here in this recipe.

Take a few large strawberries and cut a few slices from the centre. Use these to decorate on top. Chop teh side parts to add to the batter. The strawberry turns a little sour when its cooked, and that is absolutely fine. In fact we are banking upon it to add that burst of flavour to the cake.

The lemon rind is only the top yellow-green part of the lemon. Do not scrape the white pith, that is bitter. You can scrape the rind off one large lemon or two small ones using a small sized grater (like the one used for ginger to make ginger tea). Lemon adds a hint of freshness to this cake.

if your curd is home made, make sure that you drain off the water. Its ok if you are not using hung curd, just make sure you check the cake before getting it out of the oven.

The batter has curd, milk and oil so its thinner than a conventional cake batter, That is ok. Just ensure you use a 9″ pan to bake or check that the cake (a skewer dipped into the cake, comes out clean) is done before you remove from the oven.

I baked my cake in a 6″ square tin and it was pretty tall. I baked it for 45 mins in a pre heated oven at 175 degrees.

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