The Best Easy Cake Recipe Doesn’t Even Require Measuring Cups

Thanks to my family’s restaurant roots, I’ve managed to become fairly proficient in the kitchen. I’ve taught myself how to make a pretty killer chicken adobo, mastered the art of the béchamel sauce, and can whip up a solid Bolognese without a recipe. The kind of cooking I do well with offers a lot of flexibility: Layering flavors and spices, tweaking cooking temperature or time, and playing around with cooking methods is completely in my comfort zone. 

But I have never considered myself a baker. I will make chocolate chip cookies or sourdough bread once in a while, but with baking, there’s a certain amount of precision involved that tends to send me into a tailspin. (I heard once that baking is applied chemistry, and as someone who struggled with that subject in school, my fear takes over every time.) 

So when I watched my French husband nonchalantly turn out a gâteau au yaourt (yogurt cake) in under an hour, and with no measuring cups involved, I was fascinated. He explained that this cake is the first recipe many French kids are taught because it's almost impossible to mess up. There’s no technique required, aside from dumping and stirring ingredients in a big bowl. And bonus, it’s likely you have most of the ingredients in your kitchen already. 

What Is Gâteau au Yaourt?

I should first explain that in France, yogurt is a household staple—in most supermarkets, they take yogurt so seriously that it even has its own aisle. A typical French household will have a stash of yogurt in the refrigerator, ready to be eaten for breakfast or as a dessert.

Gâteau au yaourt is a cake made with yogurt as its star ingredient. When mixed with flour, sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla, the resulting cake is somewhere between a pound cake and a coffee cake. It’s not too sweet, and is often enjoyed as an afternoon snack with tea or coffee. Another wonderful thing about this recipe is that you can still play with the ingredients, reducing the sugar or oil if you prefer. This fairly basic cake is also perfect for including additions like fresh berries, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, lemon juice, or other seasonal flavors. 

How to Make Gâteau au Yaourt

While yogurt is the base of this recipe, it also relies on the actual yogurt container as its measuring tool. A container of single-serve French yogurt measure about 125 grams, or just about half a cup. (In the US, the single-serve containers are slightly bigger, but luckily, it doesn’t matter much, since this recipe uses ratios instead of exact measurements.)

You’ll need a large mixing bowl, a whisk, spatula, and a baking vessel. Empty the single serve plain yogurt into the bowl, scraping every last bit out with the spatula, then reserve the container. Then using the emptied yogurt container, measure out two pots of sugar, three pots of flour, and one pot of neutral cooking oil, adding each ingredient to the bowl as you go. Add three eggs, a generous pinch of salt, a teaspoon of baking powder, and a teaspoon of vanilla (or if you’re like me, you measure with your heart). Whisk everything together so it’s pretty smooth, then pour into either a greased 9-inch baking pan or standard loaf pan. Bake it at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Voila—your French yogurt cake is ready to enjoy.