Yummy Yogurt

Today I am 37 weeks pregnant! Full term. and very large. I feel like I'm in the last leg of a marathon (not that I've run a marathon... perhaps it feels like the last 3 hours of our Garabaldi Mountain hike...)

During my pregnancy, I've been trying to eat lots of yogurt. It's supposed to be a great thing to eat when pregnant (calcium for growing bones, bacteria for digestion, the fact that it's not chips...)

I don't tend to get flavoured yogurt because I find it too sweet. If I buy the kind that is "fruit on the bottom" I'll purposely leave some of the fruit at the bottom. I also never buy the fat free stuff because it's thickened with corn starch... And that's weird to me. My preferred yogurt is just plain 2% yogurt.

My favourite way to eat it is with a spoonful of maple syrup, or a dollop of delicious jam.

For Christmas, my brother and his fiancée bought me an AMAZING local jam from Ottawa. The brand is michaelsdolce and they pride themselves on using local ingredients for maximum flavour. The lime and kiwi flavour I got was divine.

Besides eating yogurt as a healthy snack, I think it's fabulous in baking. Here are some of my favourite recipes:

1. Ina's Lemon Yogurt Cake. The last time I made it, I baked it into a layered cake with lemon curd filling and vanilla buttercream icing.




2. Janet and Greta's CopaBanana Cake. I make this recipe all the time, substituting the low fat sour cream for yogurt. Whenever I want to make up my own banana cake/muffin recipe (like when I made the red fife blueberry banana muffins), I always start with this recipe and adjust from there.



3. Most recently I made a carrot pound cake. I found a recipe that called for sour cream and then adjusted for yogurt. It's amazing how tic-tac orange the batter becomes. Quite bright and cheerful for a bitter cold January.




Carrot cakes always tend to be quite moist; this one is especially so because of the yogurt. The recipe makes two small loaves but I saved some of the batter to make some mini cupcakes, sprinkling them with cinnamon and sugar. Usually I will take cakes out of the oven as soon as an inserted skewer comes out clean. For this recipe, I would make sure the edges and top are a nice golden brown, which is several (maybe even 10 mins) after the skewer comes out clean. About 60 minutes total.

Enjoy!!!

Carrot Yogurt Pound Cake

1 cup butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

6 eggs

1 cup yogurt

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups flour

½ teaspoon each baking powder, baking soda, and salt

3 cups shredded carrots


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees farenheit.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.
4. Add eggs to butter sugar mixture one at a time, beating after each addition.
5. Add yogurt and vanilla. Mix until smooth.
6. With mixer on low, add flour mixture 1/3 at a time.
7. Add carrots and mix until just blended.
8. Fill two small loaf pans that have been lined with parchment paper.
9. Bake for 60 minutes or until skewer comes out clean and the top is a nice golden brown.