Orange cranberry cake

By Mardi Michels, Eat. Live. Travel. Write

For my second post here at Liberté, I have taken another recipe that's been in my family for years and lightened it up a little with some Liberté Honey Greek yogurt 0%. The original recipe is marked "Amanda's" in my mum's handwriting - meaning that it was one of my sister's favourites. It's an orange cake made with almond meal as well as flour so it's a little denser than a regular cake. It also contains a lot of butter and I wondered whether I might replace some of that with the yogurt.  it took me a couple of times making this to get it to the consistency I wanted - a moist cake with a hint of sweetness that you can dress up with a dollop of cream or ice cream (or quite frankly, yogurt!) or simply enjoy plain with a cup of tea as an afternoon treat. I love the fact that it tastes decadent without all that butter - plus, you're getting a little protein from the yogurt as well.  I added some cranberries to the batter as much for colour as anything else but the slight tart flavour contrast nicely with the sweetness from the yogurt and the orange juice and zest. It's an easy cake to make and I imagine would make lovely muffins too - what a great breakfast on the run!

Orange cranberry cake

Ingredients

1 cup cake and pastry flour

1/2 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
zest of 2 medium oranges
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup Liberté Honey Greek Yogut 0%
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup orange juice
2 eggs

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350˚F.
2. Grease a 9" round cake tin.
3. In a large bowl, combine the flour, almond meal, zest and cranberries.
4. In a separate bowl, whack together the sugar, yogurt, oil, juice and eggs.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix to combine.
6. Pour into cake tin and bake for 35 minutes. The top of the cake will be a light golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake should come out clean.
7. Serve warm with a sprinkle of icing sugar. Also delicious with a dollop of cream, ice cream or yogurt.
8. Can be stored in an airtight container for about a week. To re-heat, simply microwave at high power for about 20 seconds.

Mardi Michels is a full-time teacher of French at the elementary-school level in Toronto. She blogs at eat. live. travel. write.where she chronicles her culinary adventures near and far!