Healthy Cake

[zingerella]

Here's the recipe for the amazing (if I do say so myself) healthy breakfast cake.

It has apples! It has oatmeal! It has yoghurt! That makes it health food!

The recipe is adapted from Anne Lindsay's Smart Cooking (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1986); I added the apples and oats.

1 cup plain yoghurt
1 tsp baking soda

1/4 cup butter
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar (also works with 1/2 cup honey substituted for the brown sugar; you may wish to use a bit less yoghurt if you use honey-this is a pretty moist cake)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder

Topping

1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/3 cup (or a couple of handfuls) large-flake oats
1 apple peeled, cored, and sliced thin

Set the oven to 350ºF, and put the rack in the centre of the oven.

Grease and flour a 9-inch square cake pan or the moral equivalent. Set aside.

Combine the yoghurt and baking soda in a bowl with room for the yoghurt to expand (because it will). Stir and set the fizzing mixture aside, taking delight in the fizzing noises.

Mix the topping: Combine the 1/2 cup brown sugar, the cinnamon, and the oats in a bowl and mix them up.

Sprinkle a layer of topping in the bottom of the pan (about 3 tablespoonsful). Lay the sliced apple over this-one apple should about cover the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle another layer of sugar-cinnamony-healthy goodness over this, but be sure to leave at least half of the topping. Set the pan and the topping aside.

Now get your cake mixing bowl, and beat the butter and the cup of brown sugar until they're well mixed. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat well for about 2 minutes.

Mix the flour and baking powder together. Combine with the butter and egg mixture alternately with the fizzed yoghurt.

Spread half the batter in the prepared pan. It's a pretty thick batter, so it won't flow; you kind of have to spoon it more or less evenly in the pan. Spoon the remaining topping over this. Spread or spoon what's left of the batter.

Bake for 45 minutes or until it's done, except it's not done yet, because you want to let it sit in the pan for 10-15 minutes after you take it out of the oven. Then turn it onto a cooling rack and admire your cake's lovely upside-down apple topping.

Enjoy!