Valentine's Day cake

Valentine's Day, love it or hate it. For me it's just another excuse to bake a cake. I have recently bought a heart-shaped baking tin and wanted to try it. My guys love the yogurt cake, and I have been baking this recipe with different yogurts to make it a bit different. This time I used a Chobani blood orange yogurt with a bit of a plain Greek style yogurt.

Valentine's day cake
Ingredients:

200g granulated sugar
200ml of Greek style yogurt (Chobani in this recipe)
2 medium eggs
250g  self-raising flour
1 heaped tsp of baking powder
1/3 mug vegetable oil
1 tsp of vanilla paste
grated zest of 1 orange

icing sugar
a few drops of red colour food gel
juice of a blood orange
Queens icing pens

Grate the zest of an orange, add the sugar and vanilla paste. Add the eggs and using the hand blender, mix well. Add the yogurt, oil, flour and the baking powder and mix together.
Butter the cake tin and pour the cake mix in.
As this heart-shaped tin is not very deep, I have also made 3 cupcakes with the remaining cake mix.
Put it in the oven preheated to 180C.
Bake for about 45-50 minutes, check with a wooden skewer if it is done. Once the skewer comes out clean, the cake is ready. Let it cool completely before decorating.
Mix the icing sugar with the juice of the orange juice and a few drops of red colour food gel until you reach the right consistency, not too runny, not too thick. Spread on top of the cake.
Tip: for the smooth surface don't do as I did by trying to transfer the cake from one plate to another, as the surface acquired some wrinkles. I guess the best way would be to decorate the cake by using a cake stand and leaving it there. Once set, write your message with the Queens icing pens.

Was it a success? Taste-wise it was lush, moist and sweet, but my autie refused to eat it because it looked different, so next time I bake the yogurt cake, it will be back to an old familiar round cake tin.

If you are curious to know what the other bloggers are cooking this week, have a look at a recipe-laden blog A Mummy Too and join in with your own recipes.

This week's CookItBlogIt recipe linky is hosted by another inspiring blog, The Diary of a Frugal Family.