Believe me when I tell you that this is the easiest cake recipe you will ever come across. I was first given this recipe back in 2007 when I was a chalet host in Finland for a season. Every day I had to prepare an ‘afternoon’ tea for the guests to return to after a cold morning of skiing. This cake was treated as a bit of a trade secret – because it is SO customisable. I decided I had to create a single serve portion and share it – so here is my trade secret, super easy individual yogurt cake recipe!
I pretty much made this cake 5 or 6 out of the 7 days in the week and none of my guests were any the wiser. You can mix up the yogurt flavouring and what you add into it or decorate it with so it looks like a different cake every day. And I’m not kidding when I say it’s easy. I used to have to get my guests a breakfast ready for when they got up in the morning – so I’d usually be in the chalet for 7am. By 7:30am I’d have the breakfast table set up for 10 people, bacon and eggs cooking AND a cake in the oven. My guests used to think I was wonder woman. 😉
How do you make yogurt cake?
The secret to this recipe is that you use the yogurt pot as the measuring cup for all the ingredients – no weighing things out, no various measuring cups to wash up. Quick. Simple. Easy.
When I was making this as an entire cake I would use a standard size yogurt pot to make it. To make this in an individual size I used a 25ml (0.85oz) cocktail / drink jigger (see link below). This makes a perfectly sized cake for one and is great for your afternoon tea. You can use any vessel of a simliar size – just bear in mind that most standard shot glasses are a 50ml measure rather than 25ml (but why not make 2 anyway!) I used a 6 hole muffin tin to bake the cakes but you could easily use a small cake tin or similar.
Yogurt Cake Variations
Since the base recipe is all the same you can assemble the batter really quickly – within minutes. Then choose the additions you want based on what flavour you fancy. Here are some great ideas:
- Banana yogurt cake – made with banana flavoured yogurt and banana pieces (or mash up some banana into the batter)
- Chocolate cake – mix in some cocoa powder into the batter
- Chocolate chip cake – mix chocolate chips into the batter
- Raspberry yogurt cake – drop full raspberries into the batter when poured into the tin. You can also make a yum raspberry sauce to pour over by heating up some raspberries, water and sugar and then pureeing
- Blueberry yogurt cake – blueberry yogurt with full blueberries dropped into the batter.
Can you freeze yogurt cake?
You can freeze yogurt cake in the same way you would with any sponge cake. Wrap in clingfilm and then place in a sealed freezer proof container for up to 3 months.
The cake will keep for up to 5 days in a sealed cake tin or similar stored in a cupboard or counter.
Are you a fan of individual desserts? Check out this make ahead sticky toffee pudding or this individual chocolate cheesecake.
Products that work well for this recipe
Steel Double Jigger
Non Stick 6 Muffin Tray
Joseph Joseph Whiskle
Individual Yogurt Cake (aka the easiest cake recipe ever)
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 1 1x
Description
Spongy, sweet, delicious & customisable. Yet you’ll never believe how simple and easy these individual yogurt cakes are to make – you can have it in the oven within minutes!
Ingredients
- 1 25ml shot glass / jigger of any flavour yogurt (see note 1&2)
- 1 small egg
- 1/2 shot glass vegetable oil (see note 3)
- 3/4 shot glass sugar
- 1 1/2 shot glasses plain flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- Chocolate chips, fruit or cocoa powder to flavour (see note 4)
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F
2. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl
3. Grease a muffin tin (6 hole) and pour the batter in (see note 5). Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Use a skewer to test if ready (insert into the center of the cake and if it comes out clean then it’s ready)
Notes
- I think in the US most standard measures are 1 oz (29ml). Obviously, this is going to make very little difference but please note that the calorie information is based on using a 25ml measure (0.85 oz)
- You really can use any flavour yogurt you want – so get creative! You can also just use plain yogurt if you are going to add fruits or chocolate to the batter to flavour it.
- It might seem like a lot of oil for a cake – but since you don’t add butter it is needed to keep everything moist.
- You can also use an individual sized cake tin or even a ramekin.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: British
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1
- Calories: 420
- Fat: 23g
- Carbohydrates: 45g
- Protein: 10g
Keywords: cake, yogurt, muffin, dessert, afternoon tea, fruit, dessert, snack
So yummy! We used nonfat Greek vanilla yogurt and made one batch with chocolate chips and the other with cherry preserves. Both turned out really moist and delicious, but I preferred the cherries (which surprised me). Will definitely make again.
★★★★★