Every recipe can be modified, and you always have a choice to adapt it and make it healthier. If you’ve gone through some of my recipes on my blog, you will know that I don’t think twice before using butter or other saturated fats. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’d like healthy Nutella Brownies (oxymoron alert!) any day but I usually put in effort to only change the flavors and make it unique. I don’t try and make it vegan or opt for mono saturated fats or go easy on the sugar.
A week ago a friend (the impossibly fit @SashG, who among other things runs healthylivingindia.org) asked me to post a healthy dessert recipe which involves blueberries. A flurry of ideas: Crumble? Crisp? Brownies? Cheesecake? Cupcakes? See how I only think of rich and heavy desserts! While all these sounded great, I wanted a simpler affair that could be had at any time of the day; a dessert that makes you go back to the kitchen every now and then for a little sliver.
I finally settled on a Blueberry Tea Cake: a soft, moist cake batter with swirls of sweet and tart blueberries.
I’m including the nutrition value of each serving with this exception of a recipe.
- 1 cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour
- ½ cup White Flour
- 11/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
- ¼ teaspoon Baking Soda
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
- 4 tablespoons Olive Oil
- ½ cup Sugar
- 1 Egg, room temperature
- 1 Egg White, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- ½ cup Milk 1% (room temperature)
- 1 tablespoon Vinegar
- Juice of Half a Lime
- ⅔ cup Blueberries or Blueberry preserves (I used preserves as fresh were not available)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Lightly grease a 6 cup bundt or a square baking pan.
- In a medium bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat oil and sugar until light and creamy and combined.
- Add the egg and egg white to the butter mixture. Mix till well combined.
- Add the vanilla extract and lime juice.
- Alternately adding the flour mixture and milk to the butter mixture in thirds, starting with the dry and ending with the dry. Mix gently and do not over mix the batter.
- Pour half the batter into the baking dish.
- Top with blueberries or preserves. Cover with the remaining batter and bake for 30-40 minutes.
Serving size: 1 Calories: 129.4 Saturated fat: 0.6g Unsaturated fat: 2.6g Sugar: 14.2g Fiber: 0.9g Protein: 2.2g
Happy Baking!
Your background in the photos reminds me of Gujarat.
The teacake looks yummy and on the plus size.. errr side, it looks healthy too :-)
Delicious looking! Blueberries are great in baked goods.
Cheers,
Rosa
The picture is looking good here, An! Vibrant and lively..oh..yes and healthy too :)
Just lovely. And healthy! Can’t beat that!
yay for #healthbaking :) blueberries in dessert = YUMMY!!! all of your bundt cakes come out perfectly. did you butter it even for this recipe?
Thanks Junia. I used a tiny bit of olive oil and dusted with flour.
I am happy to see that this delicious cake only has a 1/2 cup of sugar in it! Your picture does look lovely, so I am ready for tea and cake now. Thanks for posting this one!
This look scrumptious! : )
Looks so perfect for a tea party :)
Honestly these tea cakes are my go to cakes for breakfast, afternoon tea and late night snack. So pretty.
So cute and tiny! Love that you lightened it up. I need to do that more often.
Beautiful little cake!
The tea cakes look great.
Proof that a healthy dessert can also be a delicious dessert!
Ha! I am exactly the same way… I never think to make my baked goods healthier and am constantly in awe of those who do. THIS recipe looks divine: can you really go wrong with the words ‘tea’ and ‘cake’, especially when combined? :) I love that we can feel better about eating it, too!
PS – I absolutely LOVE the cloth in the background! Beautiful!
Thanks Aimee!
You had me at blueberries, my absolute favorite berries ;-). I think I’ll get my bundt pan out.
That looks delicious. I love blueberries although unfortunately they can be pretty bland too. Especially the ones we find here.
I LOVE blueberries in cakes! Yum, and yours looks fantastic. I love that you’ve made it healthier too!!
I’ll bet it doesn’t even taste low fat, it looks delicious! As far as I’m concerned, blueberries can grace my table every day.
Love the addition to the cake. I’d love to try making a gluten-free version of your creation-looks delicious :-)
You are such a great baker and this cake looks perfect. I like fruits in cake but the husband doesn’t like much ,, but I am still going to make it :)
Since I found really excellent frozen blueberries – it is next to impossible to find fresh here – I have been loving baking with them and this tea cake is just the kind of cake they all love for breakfast in my house. Bookmarked this great yummy recipe!
You have such an amazing website and I love anything related to berries. This is something where I don’t mind having 2nd and 3rd helpings. Dunk them in tea or milk. Oh yummm.. too bad I’ve run out of berries. Otherwise I would really bake this tea cake this weekend itself. Thanks for buzzing me over at my blog. Do stay in touch. Cheers, Jo
Aw… Thanks Jo! I hope you find berries soon! This cake is really worth it.
I always think that I can have double of a healthy treat instead of limiting the amount when it is more sweet. It is good to have a variety up your sleeve. This looks super cute and delicious!
This looks wonderful! I’m glad you were challenged like that, I adore all your recipes, but am trying to watch the fat/sugar in my diet. This looks perfect for entertaining, though, and my wife is in love with blueberry-baked anything. :)
I love the oxymoron alert! I kind of think healthy dessert is an oxymoron myself… I’m definitely a full fat kind of girl, but I do appreciate a good dessert that doesn’t leave you feeling guilty!
I LOVE blueberries! I bet this is delicious. I do my best to eat healthfully as well but sometimes a splurge is definitely in order. This sounds like a great little cake for breakfast.
Sometimes is hard to crate a “healthy” version of a dessert, nothing better than add fat and sugar. I find that replacing all or part of flour to wheat flour , using margarine instead of butter, and using fat free milk instead of regular, makes some difference.
What I never try is replacing sugar, I just add a little less than the recipe ask, but that’s it.
This cake looks very healthy, something that I can eat without guilty…!!!
This looks so good! I love desserts with blueberries or even mixed berries, delish! (and healthy? awesome!)
delicious looking cake looks wonderful
So pretty! I admit, I’m a sucker for a good-tasting, lowfat coffee cake.
OOOH! Tasty! Perfect with tea!
This looks gorgeous! Yum!
Blueberries are one of my favorite fruits to throw in cakes and muffins. This tea cake looks soo yummy!
This looks wonderful! I love any dessert that involves blueberries, so this sounds great! :)
This sounds amazing! I love blueberries so much and your cake looks perfect!
It looks so light. I love blueberry cakes!