I Baked!

Ok...I'll give  you a couple of moments to compose yourselves from the shock you must be in after reading the title of this post. 

C'mon now, it's not that far-fetched that I baked...I mean, I do have a sweet tooth that runs my life! Anyway, I saw this fabulous looking Strawberry Yogurt Cake on Katie Elizabeth's "Five on Friday" post last week, so I decided to give it a try! She linked back to A Spicy Perspective for the original recipe {see it here}.

This photo is from A Spicy Perspective, where Katie Elizabeth found the original recipe!

Sooo...I set out to make this perfect-for-spring dessert, and it turned out pretty yummy! If I were to make it again, I think I'd use more strawberries...but it was still pretty tasty with the just 16 ounces, as called for in the recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of butter {2 sticks}, softened
• 2 cups of sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 tablespoons {I have to spell this out because the teaspoon/tablespoon abbreviations sometimes confuse me!} of lemon juice, divided
• Zest of 1 lemon {don't worry, I'll explain ZEST in a bit...the husband had to teach me!}
• 2½ cups of flour, divided
• ½ teaspoon of baking soda
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• 8 ounces of plain {or vanilla} Greek yogurt
• 16 ounces of fresh strawberries, diced
• 1 cup of powdered sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan.
2. Sift together 2 ¼ cups of flour, the baking soda and salt. {Sidenote: I don’t own a sifter, so of course I turned to google for an alternate method…there are several options, but I just used a wire whisk to aerate and even-out the density of this mixture.}
3. Mix in the lemon zest and set aside. {What the heck is lemon zest, you ask? Well, it’s little tiny shavings of the lemon peel. Surprisingly enough, I don’t own a zester either…but my handy-dandy cheese-grater worked just fine to zest my lemon!}



I just had to photo-document my fabulous zesting skills!

4. New bowl: with an electric mixer, cream together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. {Why one at a time? I don't get it! Next time I think I'll do all three at once...just to be a rebel!}
6. Mix in 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.
7. Alternate beating in the flour mixture and the Greek yogurt. {I used vanilla yogurt because I don't like plain yogurt...not that I would have been able to taste it in the final product anyway...but I'm just picky like that!}
8. Toss the strawberries with the remaining ¼ cup of flour {this helps the strawberries spread out evenly in the batter rather than all sinking to the bottom. I learned this through a different baking experiment...are you impressed?!!?}, and gently mix the batter {NOT with the electric mixer}.
9. Pour the batter evenly into your Bundt pan. Place your cake in the over and reduce the temperature to 325 degrees {oops! I forgot to do the temp reduction thing...but mine still turned out ok!}. Bake for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
10. Allow the cake to cool in the Bundt pan for 20 minutes, then place it on a wire rack {or just a plate} to allow it to finish cooling.                                                                                     
11. For the frosting, whisk together the remaining 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and the powered sugar. {once again, I didn't want it to be too tart, so I use one tablespoon of lemon juice and one tablespoon of milk.} Drizzle over the top of the cake.

And Wahlah! The finished product...

It kinda looks like a donut here, but I promise it's a cake!
Perhaps my iPhone photog skills could use some work!

Thanks again to Katie Elizabeth for finding this perfectly-sweet dessert and to A Spicy Perspective for the original recipe!

Happy Baking!