I’ve been trying to write this post all morning but I’m a wee bit sleep deprived so it’s been slow going. Suddenly it’s almost 3 p.m. California time and I’ve got meat balls chilling in the fridge for dinner (pasta with veggies for me) and a fresh batch of healthier chocolate chip cookies on the counter — but the point of today’s writing is to tell you about a luscious blueberry yogurt cake we put together earlier this week (and have since devoured).
It’s been cold in Sonoma County for the last week — not polar vortex cold but cold for us — with temperatures in the low 30s at night and a lot of rain and grey skies and air chilly enough to freeze our fingers when we go outside. That plus mild lingering colds for the little ones has kept us mostly house-bound. We have to drive if we want to go anywhere, for me a major lifestyle change from the last 20 years or so, and to be honest it keeps us closer to home. But I like to think that home is a place of comfort and ease, safety and cheer, made even better by the addition of afternoon cups of tea and a little something to offer those those who drop in to keep us company.
Elsie and I put together this cake the other afternoon partly to use up the fresh blueberries I’d gotten on a super sale at the store, but also because my parents were coming by for a cup of tea and I wanted to have a snack to share. I love this recipe because it’s not too sweet, contains just a bit of coconut oil and a decent amount of yogurt so it’s rich tasting without being heavy. Instead of folding cinnamon into the batter I did a sort of internal streusel-swirl with cinnamon and brown sugar and baked the batter as a bundt cake. Loaded with juicy blueberries, this cake was a hit!
I’d have a slice for a mid-morning snack or in a pinch, breakfast, and of course in the afternoon with a piping hot cup of tea. This winter I’ve taken to making myself an Irish Breakfast tea around 3:30pm to tide me over until the dinner hour, especially with the soggy weather we’ve been having. I’m definitely a coffee person but I cannot drink it all day and so I’m rediscovering my love for tea served with or without an accompanying tid-bit. Still, as tid-bits go, this one’s pretty stellar.
Use frozen blueberries if you don’t have fresh, and try swapping a 1/3 cup of maple syrup for the sugar if you like.
Makes 10 servings.
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup raw sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup blueberries
1 egg
1 cup plain whole milk yogurt
3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
Heat oven to 400F.
Well grease a regular size bundt pan with butter and dust with flour.
In a small bowl whisk together the cinnamon and brown sugar.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder and salt. Gently stir in the blueberries. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg, yogurt, and coconut oil until thoroughly combined.
Stir the flour- blueberry mixture into the yogurt mixture and stir until just combined. Pour one half of the batter into the bundt pan, sprinkle the cinnamon-brown sugar mixture evenly across it, then top with the remaining batter. PlaCe pan in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes, checking after 30 minutes, until a tester inserted in the cake comes out clean.
Remove cake from oven and transfer to a wire rack; let stand in cake pan for 10 minutes then then gently turn out onto the rack to finish cooling completely.
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