Low-Fat Orange Yogurt Cake

I am always skeptical when it comes to low-fat desserts and bakes. I really doubt they will taste as good. However, after the feasting and binging on Chinese New Year food and goodies, it's time that I try making something that's low-fat. Earlier this week, I made curry chicken with low-fat milk, after hearing good reviews from my friend. Indeed, the curry tasted as good, except that I missed the sweet aroma from the coconut milk.

I made a "loaf" of low-fat orange cake last night. I adapted a Cranberry Pecan Cake recipe from Alice Medrich's Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts. As I just needed a simple cake, I omitted the cranberry and pecan, as well as the frosting. I used a wooden spoon instead of an electric mixer as I was too lazy to do the cleaning up. Although, on hind sight, I should have use a manual whisk instead. I think it would be easier to whisk the butter and sugar with it as it took me a quite a while to cream the butter mixture till pale & fluffy with the wooden spoon :(

The cake is meant to be baked in an 8-cup tube pan, since I don't have such kind of pan, I used a disposable foil loaf pan. Fortunately, the cake turned out to be very soft and light, unlike those moist and dense pound cake or butter cake. I believe the use of cake flour and yogurt helps to give the cake such a soft texture. This is meant to be a low-fat cake, but I think the sugar ought to be reduced further by at least 20 to 30%, I still find it a tad too sweet for me!


Ingredients:

250g cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
70g butter, soften at room temperature
zest of 1 orange
180g sugar (original recipe calls for 200g of sugar)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup plain, non-fat yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoon orange juice

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 180 degC. Grease or line a 8" by 4" loaf pan.


2. Sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.


3. In a bowl, mix together yogurt, vanilla essence and orange juice.


4. With an electric mixer, beat butter and orange zest for 1 min. Add in sugar and beat on high speed for about 3 mins.


5. Add in eggs gradually, about 1 tablespoon at a time, beat constantly for about 2 mins.


6. On low speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture. On medium-high speed, beat in 1/2 of the yogurt mixture. On low speed, beat in half of the remaining flour mixture. On high speed, beat in the remaining yogurt mixture. On low speed, beat in the rest of the flour mixture.


7. Scrape into prepared pan and bake for 45 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.