Cook this: Prajitura cu caise — apricot yogurt cake — from Carpathia for Mother's Day

Our cookbook of the week is Carpathia: Food from the Heart of Romania by Irina Georgescu. Tomorrow, we’ll feature an interview with the author.

To try another recipe from the book, check out: Alivenci (Moldovan polenta cakes with cheese and dill) and papanaşi (ricotta doughnuts served with sour cherry jam and crème fraîche).

With just a handful of ingredients and pretty much any fruit you have access to (I used rehydrated dried cherries), Irina Georgescu ’s yogurt cake is satisfyingly tender and very flexible. “It goes well with plums, cherries, with anything,” she says. “It’s such a good cake.”

Baking with cultured dairy products — buttermilk, crème fraîche, sour cream or yogurt — is very common in Romania. And although it’s often associated with Nordic countries, Georgescu says, the practice originated in Eastern Europe following the Mongol invasion in the 13th century.

“We bake a lot with cheese, buttermilk or sour cream. If we want a cake to be soft and have a nice crumb, we add sour cream. We call it smântână,” she adds. “If you make the apricot cake, you will definitely notice the crumb. And if you have something similar again, you will know that that cake has dairy in it. Because it’s a certain kind of softness that you don’t find even in olive oil cakes.”

PRǍJITURA CU CAISE

Apricot yogurt cake

3 eggs, separated
3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
1/4 cup (60 mL) olive oil or canola oil, plus extra for greasing
1/4 cup (60 g) plain yogurt
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract
Salt
1 1/4 cup (150 g) all-purpose flour
1 tsp (5 mL) baking powder
4-5 fresh apricots, halved
Icing sugar, for dusting

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Grease and line a deep 11 by 9 inch (30 by 23 cm) baking pan. Whisk the egg whites until they form soft peaks and set aside. Beat the yolks with the sugar then add the oil, yogurt, vanilla extract and a pinch of salt, stirring well to emulsify. Add the flour and baking powder then gently fold in the egg whites.

Step 2

Pour the cake batter into the pan, then arrange the apricot halves on top, cut-side up. Bake for 30 minutes or until the cake is firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the pan, then dust with icing sugar and cut into long rectangular slices to serve.

Serves: 6