Seriously delicious whole-wheat blueberry Bundt cake is the perfect (healthy) dessert

This you’ll-never-believe-it’s-actually-healthy dessert features whole-wheat flour, low-fat Greek yogurt and fresh blueberries. It’s the perfect way to lighten up dessert — but not too much.

Look at that blueberry glaze, and tell me you didn’t start drooling immediately. The way it drips off the whole-wheat blueberry Bundt cake is enough to make even the biggest nonbeliever in diet-friendly desserts rush straight to their pantry to make this recipe. The best part, though, is that the cake is moist and fresh, so you can be sure your guests will never guess they’re eating something that’s good for their waistlines too. At least mine had no idea!

Photo credit: Jessica Merchant of How Sweet Eats

Whole-wheat blueberry Bundt cake recipe

You know who loves Bundt cakes? My mom.

Perhaps it’s because she is a baby boomer, or perhaps it’s just because she is really good at making them, but you can almost always count on a Bundt cake being in her kitchen.

And as a reminder, she is also the kind of woman who can bake a cake and then let it sit in a pretty dome on her counter all week while she savors one slice a day. One slice, people.

Now isn’t that the kind of woman we all aspire to be? I had the best example ever.

Serves 6-8 

Ingredients:

For the cake

• 2 cups plus 1 tablespoon whole-wheat pastry flour, divided
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs
• 2/3 cup loosely packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup grapeseed oil
• 1 cup plain full-fat or low-fat Greek yogurt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 pint fresh blueberries

For the blueberry glaze

• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
• 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Liberally spray a 6-cup Bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the 2 cups of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Add the eggs and brown sugar to the bowl of your electric mixer. Beat on medium speed until fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the grapeseed oil, and beat for 1 to 2 minutes on low speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed. Add 1/2 the yogurt and the vanilla extract, and beat until combined. With the mixer still on low speed, add the dry ingredients, then add the remaining yogurt, and beat until just combined.
4. Toss the blueberries with the 1 tablespoon of flour, fold them into the batter with a spatula, and then pour the batter into the Bundt pan. Bake until the top of the cake is golden brown, 45 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven, and let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes.
5. To make the blueberry glaze, add the blueberries to a food processor, and blend until pureed. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla extract and milk. Blend until creamy and combined.
6. Gently invert the pan on a cake plate to remove the cake. As soon as you remove the cake from the Bundt pan, pour the glaze over the top.

Reprinted with permission from the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, from Seriously Delish by Jessica Merchant. Photographs by Jessica Merchant. Copyright 2014.

About the book

Jessica Merchant, creator of the popular food blog How Sweet Eats, has now created her first cookbook, Seriously Delish. Her playfulness jumps off the pages for her inventive and incredibly delicious recipes, such as Amaretto-butternut squash soup with cinnamon toast croutons, mini crabcakes with sweet corn and blueberry salsa and fleur de sel caramel bourbon brownie milkshakes. Her sense of humor, which brings millions of visitors to her site, shines through in chapter titles like “Breakfast (…for Dinner?)” and “Salad, Soups, and Vegetable-like Things (Ugh, if We Must).” Merchant makes food that people get excited about, nothing run-of-the-mill or expected. As a bonus, all the photographs in the book were taken by Merchant herself, giving her cookbook the personal touch her fans love and newcomers will appreciate. Seriously Delish features imaginative recipes that are tasty and original and that bring readers to a place where cooking becomes adventurous and food becomes fun.

In an interview with SheKnows, Jessica told us this was one of the recipes in the book that she really stuck to and has been happy with the result. Her biggest learning in making it? The process of making a proper Bundt cake, of course. “I get really lazy when it comes to baking,” she told us. “I don’t like to grease and flour my pans, but I use nonstick spray or coconut oil. I really think that’s the secret, making sure that the entire pan is properly coated.”

Enjoy this exclusive recipe preview from Seriously Delish. Get the book >>

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