Yoghurt pot cake: the perfect sugary blank canvas

I’m pretty easygoing when it comes to most aspects of cooking. I don’t think there’s much to be gained from being dogmatic or dictatorial. It’s just supper, at the end of the day. There are, as they say, many ways to skin a rabbit. And cooking is supposed to be about joy; it’s not an exam.

But the exception is measuring ingredients for baking. Oh boy, do I get on my high horse about this. I can be very boring indeed about the need to measure accurately. The American system of cups and tablespoons drives me mad. Cups are inexact and inaccurate, they rely on scooping and sweeping, they don’t account for the varying density of dry ingredients. Scales, I will declaim – with only the slightest impetus – are inexpensive and an essential piece of kitchen equipment. You simply cannot bake properly without them! You need weight not volume, for goodness’ sake! Baking might not be rocket science, but it is science.