Yogurt pound cake

The other day, when I was suppose to catch up with my readings, I started up browsing Epicurious (such a procrastinator) and came across this recipe.  It was awesome because I happened to have alot of yogurt in the fridge, and Mr.C was craving cake that day (he has a sweet tooth!).  Who wants to study and write papers when you can play with your kitchenaid and make something yummy!  

This cake turned out pretty well despite the lack of butter in the ingredients' list because it was tenderized/moisturized by yogurt!  The original recipe is called "Yogurt Cake with Marmalade".  I skipped the marmalade because it's yucky, and I like my cake plain and simple. I added lemon juice and cut the sugar by 1/3 so that my diabetic Dad could enjoy this as well (probably also better for the rest of us).  Mr.C likes chocolate chips in his cookies/cakes, so I threw in some bittersweet chocolate chips (I decrease the sugar amount in the recipe when I add this).

I have a paper and presentation due tomorrow in class.  Today, I ended up making a meatloaf for dinner and 2 loaves of this cake (to share amongst ourselves and our parents).  Mr.C thinks I do cook/bake alot when I'm stressed and bombarded with alot of work.  Hmmm, interesting observations.

Yogurt pound cake (with a twist)

• 1.5 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tsps baking powder
• sprinkles of salt
• 1 cup plain whole milk yogurt (I used fat free vanilla yogurt)
• 1 cup sugar (I used less)
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp zested lemon peels
• few tbsps of lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2/3 cups of chocolate chips - optional (or chopped nuts/mashed banana!)

1. Place rack in centre of oven.  Preheat oven to 350F
2. Butter/grease a loaf pan lightly
3. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl
4. Mix all wet ingredients (except oil) until well blended.  Gradually mix in dry ingredients
5. Add chocolate chips (optional)
6. Fold in oil
7. Transfer batter into loaf pan.  Place pan onto baking sheet and transfer to oven to bake until cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan, and tester inserted into centre comes out clean, for about 50 mins (top of cake will be a light golden brown).
8. Cool cake in pan on rack for 5 mins.  Cut around pan to loosen cake.  Get the cake out and cool it on rack completely. 

This is soooooo easy to make, and the cake is very moist.  No butter too, so try it!