The Power of Food

After hearing great reviews by my "cyber friend", vb, I was all geared up to make a French style, Lemon Yoghurt Cake yesterday afternoon.



Now, vb has pointed me to two almost similar recipes...and it took me some time deciding which one to use. Both use almost the same ingredients, they are seemingly easy to make and both look equally gorgeous.

I only managed to make the decision after I watched the video clip of Molly of Orangette. The video clip is featured over at Food Network. It's about how her lemon yogurt cake brought her and her husband together, what a lovely story!! It's really amazing how food can bring two total strangers together :)

While I was busy zesting the lemons, my younger one was lured into the kitchen by the nice smell of lemons. He offered to help me when he found out that I was going to bake a lemon cake. This cake is a very simple and straight forward to make...with just a few stirring and mixing, it was all done. After I popped the cake into the oven, I went to send a message to vb, telling her that I had just made the cake...and I was pleasantly surprised to know that she had also just baked hers! Great, I thought, this would be interesting...we would be able to compare notes right after mine was done.

Since both of us made the same cake at about the same time, but over at two locations...me in my little kitchen in Singapore and she in her Hong Kong apartment...I suggested to her that I would love to do a post of both our bakes. I was so glad that she agreed to it right on :)

Ok, here's how our cakes turn out:


This is vb's beautiful, sunny-looking, lemon & lime yogurt cake...


a very delicious looking slice...

and my version:


looks so different right?!

Mine turned out to be a total flop ;p The cake was rather flat and dense...unlike vb's which looked so soft and fluffy! I believe it was due to the low oven temperature, my oven is not giving me the accurate temperature setting. I guess I really have to get an oven thermometer soon. I followed Molly's recipe quite closely, except that I used an 8 inch pan instead of a 9 inch one as recommended. My cake took longer than the time required to bake and I had to cover the cake with foil and bake it for another 15 mins or so before the toothpick inserted into the centre came out clean. Due to my boy's poor mixing/stirring skills (yes, I am blaming him! poor kid!), there were several black dots on the cake surface...I suppose, it was a result of speckles of flour trapped in air bubbles.

Here's another nice shot of vb's cake...



and mine was uncooked in the centre :'(


Although my cake didn't turn out well, other than the uncooked centre, it still tasted rather good. The lemon glaze really jazz up the cake a great deal. The cake was half gone by dinner time!

It was fun writing this post...and this marks my 100th post!! I shall dedicate this post to vb, who shares the same craze in baking like me ;) Thank you for sharing all your baking experiences with me...and it always bring a smile to my face whenever I read your messages. I am so glad that you found my food blog, if not I won't be able to know someone like you in my lifetime! See, that's the Power of Food!