Super Easy Yoghurt Cake

Last Sunday I baked a yoghurt cake. I got the idea when I read this recipe, which made me feel very nostalgic. When I was a student, I used to bake a very similar recipe all the time. To be honest, the idea of using sunflower oil instead of butter still grosses me out a bit, but the results are a-ma-zing! I typically only have olive and sesame oil at home so specifically went and bought a bottle of organic sunflower oil for this cake. 

The recipe calls for one cup each of (plain) yoghurt and oil and I decided neither to use the yoghurt's original cup (250ml) nor an American measuring cup, but some Iittalla glasses I have. As I always reduce the amount of sugar from ingredients lists I used 1 instead of 1 1/2 cups of sugar. I also used a teaspoon rather than a tablespoon of baking powder as I didn't want the cake to be too "porous".

I used blueberries (a little less than two punnets) and nectarines (3, chopped with peel) and topped the cake with flaked almonds. You can never go wrong with these. Apart from tasting great, they have the added benefit of preventing your cake to get too dark on the surface too soon. Aditionally I added the zest of a lime.

This is what the finished cake looks like. As you can see, I used a heart-shaped form:

A slice of moist and yoghurty deliciousness:

So here's the super easy recipe for those of you who didn't understand the German original. I've already included my adaptions here.

Ingredients:

1 cup plain yoghurt (try not to use low-fat: too runny)
1 cup sunflower oil
1 cup caster sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar or the seeds of 1 vanilla pod
3 eggs
2.5 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
grated zest of a lemon or lime
fruit of your choice
butter and flour for lining your baking form
sufficient amount of flaked almonds to cover the surface

Preparation:

Preheat your oven to 150°.
Beat sugar and (whole) eggs to foamy consistency. Add yoghurt. Gradually add oil.
Combine flour and baking powder and add to the above mix. Add the citrus zest.
Prepare your fruit (peel, chop or wash - depending on the fruit) and blend with a bit of flour to prevent from sticking together and sinking to the bottom of the cake when baking.
Blend fruit into the dough and pour into your buttered and floured baking form. Cover with flaked almonds.
Important! Bake at 150° for approx. 20 minutes, then raise the temperature to 175° and bake for another 20 minutes or so. The lower initial temperature allows the baking powder to raise in the dough. Raising it for the second half of the baking time helps the cake to stay moist, apparently.
Take the finished cake out of the oven and let cool. Take out of your form, transfer to a plate and dust with icing sugar before serving.