Honey, Yoghurt and Chocolate Cake: the Easiest and most Delicious Cake for Afternoon Tea

Cake dusted with icing sugar and Nasturtium petals

Honey, Yoghurt and Chocolate Cake

This cake lovingly made by hand with honey, yoghurt and dark chocolate chips is a winner, and the family will come back for more. It's pretty healthy too really. We were staying at Pine Trees Lodge on Lord Howe Island looking forward to the traditional afternoon tea at 4.00 pm but I had already promised myself that I would forego having something to eat in favour of  enjoying a three course dinner that night. It was Thursday and we had been enjoying afternoon teas and amazing dinners each night since the previous Sunday when we arrived, so perhaps it was time to cut back. Then I saw this cake on the table made by the chefs that day,  and need I say anymore. It was absolutely delicious, and I have been wanting to make it ever since we came home. 

Have a nice weekend and I hope you are tempted to make this cake. It will be well worth it, and your friends and family will love you for it.

Ingredients

150 g honey
300 g butter
170 g full-fat plain yoghurt
100 g raw sugar
200 g dark chocolate chips
2 free range eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
130 g plain flour
130 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste (or the seeds scraped from one vanilla bean)
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

Let's cook:

This recipe requires an oven set to 180 deg. C or a moderate oven. The oven doesn't need to be turned on until halfway through the cooling period of Step 1. Grease and line a 25 cm round spring-form or loose based cake tin with non-stick baking paper.

1. Put the honey, butter, yoghurt, sugar, vanilla and lemon zest into a saucepan over low-medium heat and melt together, stirring occasionally. Transfer to a large bowl and set aside to cool for 45 minutes.

2. In another bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder and salt.
3. Whisk the eggs into the cooled butter mixture.

4. Add the chocolate chips to the sifted flour and give it a light stir to coat the chocolate chips so that  it     distributes throughout the cake mixture well
4. Then slowly fold in the sifted flour mixture and chocolate chips.

5.

5. Pour the mixture which resembles a batter into the prepared cake tin and cook for 45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven and stand in the tin for 10 minutes.

6. Remove the cake from the tin and allow to cool on a wire rack.

7. Serve dusted with icing sugar, edible flower petals from nasturtiums, tarragon or whatever you have on hand in your garden and thickened yoghurt or cream.

Have a happy and healthy weekend everyone. I would love to hear from you if you make this cake, or just say hello in the comments box below.

The recipe comes from the beautiful Pinetrees Lodge Recipe book which guests were all given a free copy of. I think I will be using it a lot.

(Thanks to Nanna Chel's blog for the Speedy illustration below. I thought it was cute.)

Best wishes

Pauline