Egg-free by accident

EGG-FREE YOGHURT CAKE... BY ACCIDENT 

It's official: I'm a dunderhead.

There I was, eager and all ready to try out this recipe for a French Yogurt Cake (yoghurt without the 'h' from Bon Appetit). I had all the ingredients laid out and even took the eggs out from the fridge so they would come to room temperature before I mixed up the batter.

The cake came together easily. I did everything by hand: whisked this, blended that, poured the batter into the greased tin and into the preheated oven it went.

It started rising soon after (it's a ritual for me to sit in front of the oven, peering through the glass door to see what's happening inside) and I was pleased.

Then I started cleaning up and what do I see? Two eggs still in their shells with condensed beads of water on them on the kitchen counter.

My first thought was to take the cake tin out of the oven, pour the batter into a mixing bowl and beat in the eggs, and then back into the tin. It wouldn't have worked, would it? So for the next 40 minutes or so, I just brooded over my stupidity.

But then, the cake rose some more to just under the lip of the baking tin. When the cooking time was up and the top was brown, I stuck a skewer in the centre and it came out clean.

It took a lot of restraint to keep myself from immediately removing the cake from the tin, but I let it cool. When I finally cut into it, it didn't look like any mistake had been made. The crumb did not resemble the slice of cake in Bon Appetit – it was tighter, not at all translucent – but in terms of taste, there was nothing horrible about it. 

I'll be honest, I actually made this cake only to use up leftover frosting from the Sourdough Chocolate Cake of a couple of posts ago. Despite having a tinge of coffee flavour in it, it didn't jar with the tang of the yoghurt cake. I can't say I wasn't pleased with that.

I may make this cake again and leave out the eggs consciously next time.

Egg-free yoghurt cake