Sweet, never tart

This lemon blueberry yogurt cake is deliciously lemony,sweet, and not at all tart. But as life goes and as people go, something is bound go sour. I think it makes life a little more interesting. And besides, perpetual sweetness is suffocating. I have no doubt my aversion to and skepticism of over-bubbly and sugary personalities have translated into my distaste for super-sweet desserts. I'm not saying that I won't eat a Mrs. Field's cookie or that I won't have at least four huge bites of that pumpkin pie from Costco when late October rolls around, but I am saying that most of the time, I like my food the way I like my life: slightly romantic, but mostly real. And real life ain't a cuppa shugga, honey.


So for this cake, which I tried baking for the first time, I cut the sugar by a quarter, didn't make the lemon glaze, and dismissed the zesty frosting that looked so good in the Ina Garten recipe I adapted. If I'd been making this cake for friends or something, I probably would have followed the recipe more to a T. I figured, though, that since I'd be the only one eating it, I might as well do it my way. Somewhere out there Ole Blue Eyes Sinatra is pretty proud of me. I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the way my cake turned out, too. While it's dense and moist, I think it verges a little on being too moist. It might be the applesauce that I used instead of canola oil, or the extra tablespoon of yogurt that snuck in because I did a quick job of measuring it. Nevertheless, it's delicious and basically guilt-free. Wish I could the same for that batch of cookies I made a little while ago.


Ingredients for cake:
1 1/2 cups flour + 1 tablespoon
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup blueberries (frozen or fresh)
2 tsp lemon zest (two lemons)
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. in bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt together
3. in a slightly larger bowl whisk together yogurt, eggs, vanilla extract, lemon zest, and lemon juice
4. slowly add and incorporate dry ingredients into yogurt mixture
5. fold in applesauce
6. coat blueberries with 1 tablespoon flour to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the cake and fold them in.
7. bake in oven for an hour
8. love it to death.