one of Those

Today was one of Those days for me. You know Those? Nothing is quite wrong... but everything is not-right.

Those are the days when you sit at your computer, making sure the spreadsheet is set to color, legal sized, landscape, and when you hit print, you prance happily over, only to find your stupid spreadsheet on standard sized letterhead, portrait, and black & white. Printer gnomes.

Those are the days when a simple question inspires a 27-message-long e-mail chain with no actual answer in it. Those are the days when you park your car in the Safe to Park Space, only to find it's actually the Get Scratched By a Passing UPS Truck Space. And your hair is weird, and there's something in your eye that disappears every time you go to the bathroom to get it out...

Those are the days when you come home and are in need of what's real and right, and for the love of Baby Jesus, you just need SOMETHING to go your way! I came home today and instead of impaling myself on a rusty poker (very tempting, albeit gory), I found this French Yogurt Cake in Bon Appetit, a “pound”-ey cake without the egregious pound of butter, consisting of only eight ingredients, all of which are totally pantry staples. So fast, so simple to throw together... my messy little apartment smells like lemon and vanilla and a big heaping scoop of GET OVER IT.  This little loaf cake has turned one of Those days into This day.

This is the day when I made the beautiful little cake, watched “American Idol” in my PJs, and told the printer to suck it. I can deal with This. 

French Yogurt Cake, from Bon Appetit May 2012

Preheat oven to 350 F. Coat a standard loaf pan (8 ½ x 4 ¼) with nonstick vegetable oil spray. Dust with flour & tap out excess.

Whisk 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, 2 tsp baking powder, and ¾ tsp kosher salt in a medium bowl. Using your fingers, rub 1 cup sugar with 1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest in a large bowl until sugar is moist.

Add ¾ cup whole milk Greek yogurt, ½ cup vegetable oil, 2 large eggs, and ½ tsp vanilla extract. Whisk to blend. Fold in dry ingredients and just combine. Pour batter into pan and smooth out the top. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a tester inserter in the middle comes out clean – about 50-55 minutes. Let cake cool in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes, then turn the cake onto the rack to fully cool.

Toast it for breakfast, or eat it with ice cream, way past your bedtime.