As I said in my last post, this was a weekend of experiments.  The second recipe came from a trip to the store with a coupon for a free yogurt.  After taking the food tour here in Saratoga and sampling some Greek yogurt I was thinking what could I use this yogurt for in a new and different way.  So this is what I came up with.  Taking the standard chocolate cake recipe that uses sour cream and substituting plain Greek yogurt right into the batter, top it off with homemade chocolate frosting.  The yogurt made the cake a little tangy and the texture was dense. It also seemed that it wasn’t as sweet as a regular chocolate cake which was fine.  Next time I’ll shorten the bake time by about 5 minutes since I think it was overbaked just slightly.

To make this chocolate cake you’ll need:

1¾ cups flour

11/3 cups sugar

1½ teaspoons baking soda

2 eggs

¾ cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened

16 ounces of yogurt

With a mixer cream the sugar and margarine or butter together.  Add vanilla and eggs. Stir in the yogurt. In another bowl mix the dry ingredients making sure that the dry ingredients are mixed well and the ingredients are all one color.  Once the dry ingredients are mixed completely, add the dry into the wet using the mixer to mix it completely.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Bake the cake for 30-40 minutes in a 13×9 inch pan.

I made homemade chocolate frosting to ice the cake with.  I prefer homemade to store bought since you can control how sweet the icing is and can make it more spreadable.  I’ve found that store bought can be thick and not easy to spread.  

To make homemade chocolate frosting here’s what you need.

3 T. margarine

1/3 cup powdered sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

2-3 T.  milk

Using an electric mixer first cream the margarine for 30 seconds to a minute, then add the powdered sugar (you might want to turn down the mixer and add it by spoonfuls to avoid getting covered in sugar), and add the vanilla.  Once it’s mixed thoroughly add the milk 1 tablespoon at a time until the you’ve reached the desired consistency.

Enjoy with a BIG glass of milk! Or a cup of coffee.

I’ll be thinking of ways to use Greek yogurt in new and inventive ways so stop by and check back.