French Yogurt Cake...not mine but quite tasty

You have to run off to page 30 of the May issue of Bon Appetite for the recipe for this cake.  Its really quite simple to make and tasty.  Perfect density and crumb with the most heavenly lemony taste to it...of course I may be biased as I used Meyer lemons off my fresh off my tree that makes all the world of difference.  Recipe HERE.  (Sorry about the linkage but I just don't reprint copyrighted material...its how I roll).

A couple of prep notes.  2 medium lemons will yield the tablespoon of zest needed for the recipe.

Another shortcut in the prep is use one of those mini food processors for the step where you mix the zest and sugar until the sugar is "wet".  It will take a while by hand, with the mini food processor you will be done in seconds and added bonus is you will be ensured that your zest is fine enough.

Greek yogurt is called for in this recipe.  It is used to substitute out a lot of the butter typically found in a pound cake.  It is appearing in grocery stores in the LA area more frequently now so its worth the effort to hunt it down.  You can't substitute regular yogurt as the stuff is very thick compared to what we typically get.  An 8 oz container will yield just about exactly 3/4 cup needed for this recipe.

I also didn't use regular vanilla in this recipe.  I used my homemade stuff which is brandy based rather than store bought bourbon vanilla.  I like the subtle sweet smoky flavor the brandy imparts to the vanilla bean.

The recipe calls for kosher salt.  By all means use it instead of the usual iodized table salt...that stuff is too salty tasting with a metallic aftertaste that I fear would alter the final outcome of this recipe.  Invest in a box if you don't already have it in your pantry.

This cake is really good.  I like it straight up.  My wife likes it with a little fruit and whipped cream on the side, regardless of how you like it it is quite tasty and worth the effort to make it from scratch.