Molly baz’s Earl Grey

Yogurt Cake

 
 
 
 

While we will always love similarly shaped go-to's like banana bread and pumpkin loaves, this earl grey yogurt cake is a worthy addition. Molly Baz wrote this recipe for Bon Appetit's Basically, and it's suddenly all over the internet. It's simple to put together, has relatively straightforward ingredients (we were even able to find loose leaf earl grey tea in the bulk section of our QFC) and is totally delicious.

We agreed that this type of cake never *wows* us. Like, banana bread is good but we'd opt for a flaky croissant or golden brown scone any day. Dak was worried that the earl grey flavor would be more for the novelty than the flavor (meaning it would taste just like vanilla cake) and Ju was skeptical that the earl grey would be overpowering. We were both wrong because it was completely lovely. The earl grey flavor was present but not overwhelming. The yogurt added a refreshing tang, keeping the cake from being too sweet, and the turbinado sugar on top made the outer crust exceptionally crunchy. Ju likened this cake to a London Fog, which could not be more on point. We found the recipe to be relatively resilient, which is always nice. We didn't have parchment paper, so we just heavily greased our pan (it came out just fine). We used safflower oil in place of standard vegetable oil (also fine). This is the kind of thing you could polish off yourself any day of the week if you were sitting too close to it or whip up for friends on a Saturday morning. In our opinion, that's a good recipe. — Dak & Ju

 

Ingredients

  • 1 cup vegetable oil, plus more for pan

  • 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour

  • 1 tsp kosher salt

  • ½ tsp. baking powder

  • ½ tsp. baking soda

  • 2 large eggs

  • 1¼ cups (250 g) granulated sugar

  • 1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt (or preferred dairy free yogurt)

  • 3 Tbsp. loose-leaf Earl Grey tea or ¼ cup tea from bags

  • 2 tsp. vanilla extract

  • 1 Tbsp. raw, turbinado or granulated sugar

 

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease and line a 9x5in loaf pan with parchment paper. If you don’t have parchment paper, don’t worry! Just make sure the pan is heavily greased (we used coconut oil).

  2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to mix and help press out any lumps in the flour.

  3. In a large bowl, vigorously whisk for 1 minute the 2 eggs and sugar - we actually timed it because Molly said so! At the end of the 1 minute, the mixture should be smooth, pale yellow, and frothy. Add in the yogurt, earl grey tea and vanilla. Mix to combine.

  4. In a steady stream, pour in the oil to the egg mixture, while constantly whisking. Add the dry ingredients and whisk again to combine. Only whisk until all of the dry ingredients have been incorporated- you don’t want to over-mix here.

  5. Scrape mixture into prepared pan. Generously sprinkle the top with turbinado or raw sugar. Feel free to go heavy handed on this step- plenty of sugar gives the perfect sweet and crunchy top we all love.

  6. Place pan in middle of the oven—bake for about 1 hour. We recommend checking the cake around the 50 minute mark by inserting a knife or toothpick into the middle- if it comes out clean, or even slightly wet it’s done. Remember: the cake will continue to cook even after you’ve taken it out of the oven!

  7. When the cake is done, remove from oven and let cool in pan for about 10-15 minutes. Gently turn out onto counter or cool rack. Slice and serve. Can be wrapped and stored for about a week.

Makes 1 loaf