Have you ever wanted to make a recipe, only to realize you're missing one key ingredient? Say, for instance, you're making a yogurt cake, which calls for plain, whole-milk yogurt, and you've only got your go-to breakfast, Greek yogurt, in the fridge. You've got to have that cake, obvi, so what to do?
When it comes to baking, recipes are pretty specific, and fooling around with the ingredients—especially, say, the eponymous one—is generally frowned upon. But like I said, when you gotta have that cake, you gotta have that cake. So I spent a day in the Epi Test Kitchen last week experimenting with ingredients to see what could work for baking when yogurt wasn't available.
For my tests, I made a classic French yogurt cake—a simple one-bowl, mix-and-pour-into-a-pan method. I made the recipe as written, with 1 cup plain, whole-milk yogurt, then made batches that substituted 1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt; 3/4 cup full-fat Greek yogurt plus 1/4 cup water (a similar consistency to regular yogurt); and, just for kicks, in case there's no yogurt around, 1 cup whole milk.
The cakes baked away and when they came out, the answer was simple: all four batches worked! But because Greek-style yogurt and milk are not exactly the same as whole-milk yogurt, there were, not surprisingly, some small differences between the cakes.
Not Really Right: Milk
Although the batter made with milk instead of yogurt did produce a cake, it was a very messy-looking one, because milk has a lot more moisture than yogurt, which made the batter much more runny. It also lacked that tangy flavor yogurt lends to baked goods.
The take-away: In a pinch, substitute buttermilk, or milk that has been spiked with a little lemon juice or vinegar (aka homemade buttermilk) and use 1/4 less milk than the amount of yogurt called for in the recipe.
Not Quite Right: Greek Yogurt
The cake made with Greek yogurt puffed up more than the original cake and its texture was a little bit tough. As Janet Fletcher, author of Yogurt: Sweet and Savory Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner, explains it, "Greek yogurt has less whey so your batter will be thicker, and it has significantly more fat and protein. The extra fat will give you a little more tenderness; the extra protein will give you a little more structure, but these two things actually cancel each other out." Although this cake was just fine, it wasn't as perfect-looking, or tender, as the original.
