The Bread is in the Baking

When I got back to Portland from visiting Seattle I stopped by Trader Joe’s before heading home to pick up some groceries. Figuring my housemates had eaten most of the eggs we had in our fridge I bought another dozen eggs.
Only to come home and discover that there were still 8 eggs in the fridge. They hadn’t eaten a single egg while I was gone.
So what’s a girl to do?
Go online and find a cake recipe that uses 6 eggs.

I changed a couple of things when I made this cake:

The original recipe calls for orange zest, but I didn't have any oranges in my house when I made this, so no zest! I also used olive oil instead of vegetable oil and nonfat Greek yogurt instead of whole milk Greek yogurt. I spread some strawberry rhubarb freezer jam I'd made earlier in between the layers of the cake. The original recipe calls for a butter cream frosting, but I'm not the hugest frosting fan and I didn't have any powder sugar on hand. The cake may have looked prettier with it, but without frosting it is light and fresh tasting.
All in all the cake still came out wonderfully.

French Yogurt Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup skim milk Greek yogurt
6 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. almond extract
1 cup olive oil
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 8" round cake pans with butter.
Whisk the dry ingredients together.
Mix the sugar, yogurt, eggs, vanilla and almond extracts. Whisk vigorously until well blended. While whisking, add the dry ingredients, then switch to a larger rubber spatula and fold in the oil.
Divide the batter between the two pans. Bake for approximately 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (The top will be golden and the cake will come away a bit from the sides of the pan.)
Transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and let them cool completely until ready to assemble. After the cakes have cooled slowly cut them each in half and spread the jam of your choice between each layer. Enjoy!

The picture is a little creepy, I apologize. I'll change it to something less menacing the next time I make the cake.

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You know that stuff that you can get at the candy stores? Let me be more specific, it's covered in chocolate and when you bite into it and it's crunchy and crumbly all at the same time. It's one of my favorites and I stumbled on a recipe for it!
It's also gluten free, so my housemate was able to get in on the treat. Making this is super simple and the last few steps made me feel like I was a five year old on 4th of July.

Chocolate Sea Foam


1/4 cup grams honey
1/2 cup minus 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Prepare a sheet pan (preferably with sides) with a piece of parchment paper or aluminum foil and brush it with a thin coating of butter or oil.

Combine the honey, corn syrup and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan--one large enough to allow the mixture to quadruple in size (which it will do when you add the baking soda at the end). Moisten the mixture with enough water so that there are no dry patches of sugar; then wash down any stray sugar crystals that might be clinging to the side of the pan.

Set the pan on high heat and cook and cook and cook until a candy thermometer reaches 300 F or, if you don’t have a thermometer, until the mixture turns a light amber color. While the mixture is cooking, do NOT stir it at all. Stirring can cause the sugar to seize (one moment it’s fine, one moment it’s hard and crystallized). Don’t worry about it mixing properly, it will do that on its own when it starts to boil.

When the honeycomb is sufficiently cooked, take the pan off the heat. Dump in all of your baking soda and whisk vigorously until it is well combined; while you whisk, the honeycomb will foam up dramatically. After the soda is whisked in, gently pour the mixture out onto a prepared pan and allow to cool completely, about one hour.

Once cool, break into smaller pieces and dip in chocolate if desired. Store in an airtight container or the honeycomb will suck moisture out of the air, leaving an unprotected initially crisp candy sticky and gooey in a matter of hours.

Total Time: About 2 hours

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