I like to try to make baked goods with specific people in mind (mainly because I don’t want to eat them all). With a family gathering coming up last weekend, I thought long and hard about the people that would be there and which family members hadn’t received a delicious baked concoction.
And then I remembered my lovely Aunt, our hostess for the family feast in fact. I had yet to spoil her with baked goods and with all that she has been through in the past several months I thought she certainly deserved it.
Normally this would be an easy task but my Aunt has one quirk (well several but only one is relevant to baked goods)–she hates chocolate. I know blasphemy. I’m not quite sure we are related but at least it means more chocolate for me.
Luckily, making a non-chocolate baked good in the summer is fairly easy. There is an infinite supply of sweet fruit that provide a wonderful substitution for chocolate. And fruit has the added benefit of not melting all over your fingers and your white shorts.
Berry Pound Cake
Ingredients:
- 1 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2/3 cup almond milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 3 chia eggs (or 3 regular eggs if you aren’t vegan)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar (lightly packed)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1/4 cup agave nectar
- 3 cups berries (I used strawberries and blueberries)
Method:
If you’ve opted to go the chia egg route, you want to start by making your chia eggs. Add 3 tablespoons of chia and 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon of water. Whisk together and let sit for at least 15 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350.
In a large bowl, add dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and brown sugar) and stir to combine.
In a separate bowl, add wet ingredients (almond milk, vanilla, applesauce, vegetable oil, agave, and chia egg) and whisk until combined.
Now add your wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir until combined, careful not to overmix.
Next fold in your berries. If you are using strawberries, I suggest cutting them into quarters (and removing the stem of course) before you add them.
Add your mixture to a large bundt pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray.
Place pan in the oven for 75 minutes. Make sure that the entire cake has cooked before removing from the oven. Take a toothpick and stick it through the thickest part of the cake. Make sure that when you remove the toothpick it comes out clean. If not, let the cake cook for another 10 minutes or so.
Allow the cake to cool completely on a wire rack.
Now this cake is delicious all by itself but I ended up dressing it up with some homemade strawberry glaze that I’ll be sharing tomorrow.
Sure enough when my Aunt went through the dessert line at our family feast she stared at my cake for awhile before asking if it had any chocolate. It was so nice to be able to give her the answer she was hoping to hear.
Love you Karen!
