So Much Bang for Your Buck: Cocoa Yogurt Cake with Freeze-Dried Raspberry Glaze

The cake pictured on the front cover of Snacking Cakes by Yossy Arefi is her "Cocoa Yogurt Cake," topped with vanilla bean glaze and chopped pistachios. When I happened to have a partially-used quart of whole milk plain yogurt in the fridge, I decided this recipe was the perfect way to use it up. Plus, the headnote promised that the recipe is "the most bang-for-your-buck chocolate cake I've ever made."

This is a one-bowl recipe. You whisk brown sugar with eggs; add yogurt, oil, vanilla, and kosher salt; incorporate flour, baking powder, and baking soda; and fold in chocolate (I used Callebaut 2815 57.7% callets). I had doubled the recipe and poured the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan to bake. 

 

Arefi offers a lot of glaze options for this cake. Because I had a bag of freeze-dried raspberries on hand, I decided to top it with her Freeze-Dried Strawberry Glaze, substituting raspberries for the strawberries. It's a mixture of powdered sugar, ground freeze-dried fruit, milk, and salt. My glaze was thick and an eye-popping vibrant ruby shade. I garnished the cake with crumbled freeze-dried raspberries and bits of shaved chocolate.

The cake was substantially taller in the middle of the pan than at the edges, and the two pieces in the photo above are from the center of the cake where the cake was tallest. All of the chocolate callets sank to the bottom of the cake, but I still think that they were a very good addition to this moist, classic chocolate cake that had a light and springy texture. The chocolate flavor was straightforward -- very much along the lines of devil's food -- but rich and satisfying. Given the ease of putting together the batter, I agree with Arefi that this recipe gives you a lot of bang the for the buck. 

 

The chocolate cake was simple, but the raspberry glaze was a star. I love the intensity of flavor you get from freeze-dried fruit, and the glaze was not overly sweet. I'm glad I opted for the fruit glaze, but I think this chocolate cake is quite versatile and am confident it would taste great topped with just about anything, including ice cream. It's simply delicious.

 

Recipe: "Cocoa Yogurt Cake" and "Freeze-Dried Strawberry Glaze" (made with raspberries instead) from Snacking Cakes by Yossy Arefi.