Want to bake something simple, that smells good out of the oven and is tasty, that you can probably make with ingredients you already have in the house? I’m back in the Kreyol Kitchen, aka translating my Haitian grandmother’s handwritten recipes and cooking and baking them one mistake at a time. This time I DID NOT mess up! Gâteau économique, translated to economic cake, is essentially a cake that doesn’t require one to spend a lot of money on ingredients, as the ingredients are likely staples in one’s kitchen anyway. Have I mentioned yet that it was delicious and easy to make?

I don’t do as much cooking or baking from my grandmother’s recipes as I would like to, so, in case this is new to you, here’s the background. And now for the gâteau économique.

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks of softened butter (I used unsalted)
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups of sugar (I cut this in half just to be healthier and used brown sugar just because)
• 6 egg yolks
• Yeast (I used 1 1/2 teaspoons as my grandmother didn’t specify)
• Lemon zest
• 1 box of raisins (I used golden raisins because they’re pretty)
• Vanilla essence

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Mix the butter and sugar.
3. Beat the egg yolks separately and add them to the butter/sugar mix.
4. Mix flour with yeast separately.
5. Sift the flour into the egg mixture and alternate adding flour and milk into the egg mixture.
6. Now add the raisins, vanilla essence and lemon zest to the batter.
7. Butter a baking dish and bake until cooked through, which was about 35 minutes for me.