Lemon Yogurt Cake

If it is Saturday it is lab meeting.  Now that the heat has abated I try to make a cake for my students to munch during the meeting. It is something I learnt in Charlie's lab. Lab meeting always had goodies to munch and coffee to drink. The atmosphere was free and everyone asked questions. I am trying to inculcate it in my students. At present they are too much in the grip of Sir-Ma'am culture- a culture I believe stops us from asking questions. So when students join my lab, the first thing I ask them is to stop calling their seniors in the lab as Sirs and Ma'ams. I was greatly helped in this endeavor by Mac, Lal, and Dominic- my first three students. They had the charm and the ability to put the new students at their ease such that soon the new students would forget that Mac/Lal/Dom were their seniors. I hope that the culture persists now that Dominic has submitted his thesis and is the last of the trio to leave the lab.
This Saturday I made Lemon Yogurt Cake. I found the recipe at Have Cake Will Travel blog when I was trawling through to find a easy cake recipe. I liked it because it had no butter (there was no butter in my fridge), no eggs (half of  my students do not eat eggs), and no fancy ingredients. It just used 1 cup of yogurt, 1 cup of sugar (I used a mix of brown and white sugar), 1/ 2 cup of oil,  and flour, baking powder, and lemon zest.  It also called for vanilla essence. Ever since I found vanilla pods I have replaced the essence with ground pods.  It also called for lemon essence which none of the shops had.So I added 1 tsp of lemon juice to give the cake a lemony flavor.  The cake, after it had baked, was chilled in the refrigerator. This morning I made the lemon frosting to give it a festive look. 

You will notice that one corner has been already cut. That is my share of the cake. It was truly yummy. I hope the students think too.
As my father loves yogurt, this is the cake I am going to specially bake for him.