Blueberry Bundt Cake

Much akin to my fondness for vintage casseroles, I have a deeply nostalgic attachment to bundt cakes.

Cozy and unflustered yet elegant and inventive, bundt cakes echo for me an earlier time of family gatherings and "modern" kitchen gagets, a time when it was still possible to bake cakes from scratch without quizzical looks from your friends and coworkers. Bundt cakes take me back to 1966, when they lept into popularity after a bundt cake won second place in the famous Pillsbury baking contest, back to a time when an object as understated as a ring-shaped cake was new, novel, and thrilling... back to a time when the world could be astounded by something as simple, as complex, as perfect, as a cake...

Blueberry Bundt Cake

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
2 cups raw turbinado sugar
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1 T vanilla
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen (If you're using frozen blueberries, keep them in the freezer until right before you fold them into the batter.)

~ Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a bundt pan with olive oil spray.
~ Gently whisk together the flours, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl.
~ Whisk together the canola oil, applesauce, turbinado sugar, pineapple juice, and vanilla until well blended.
~ Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones until just combined.
~ Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until well incorporated.
~ Fold in the blueberries.
~ Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan, and bake for 1 1/2 hours - until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
~ Allow the cake to cool in the pan, then turn the cake out onto a grand cake platter, and serve with whipped cream...

** Since a blueberry bundt cake seems perfectly poised to accompany a cup of tea (blueberry tea, perhaps? :-), I am delighted to send this bundt cake along to the Monthly Mingle so beautifully created by Meeta of What's for Lunch, Honey, hosted this month by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen as a High Tea event! **