Serves 12
INGREDIENTS:
- butter for greasing 9 x 13-inch baking dish
For the dry ingredients:
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 cups frozen blueberries
For the wet ingredients:
- 3 large eggs
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
PROCEDURE:
Throughout this wellness series we've been focusing on developing healthy eating habits for your kids by differentiating between good foods and not so good foods and I think it's pretty clear by now that a home based diet with lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and beans combined with low fat dairy and lean meats and fish is way better for your kids than any of the highly processed or ready to go foods that we're surrounded by.
A sweet treat that is relatively healthy!
One thing that we focused on in particular is the laying off of the sugar but, that being said, there are going to be times where something sweet is in order! And today on Cooking at Home, I’ll be making a relatively healthy and very simple to assemble blueberry-buttermilk cake that's great for kids of all ages to lend a helping hand with.
You may remember that we talked a little bit about super foods and you might remember that blueberries are on the list of super foods, and we'll also be using less processed light brown sugar instead of white sugar today.
You need to get started by pre-heating the oven to 350 degrees and also greasing a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Next, for the dry ingredients, use a large mixing bowl to combine 3 cups of all-purpose flour with 1 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of baking soda and 1 tsp of ground cinnamon and mix it up.
And then, for the wet ingredients, use another smaller mixing bowl to combine 3 large eggs with 3/4 cup vegetable oil, 1 cup of buttermilk and 1 tsp of vanilla and whisk that up.
But before combining the wet and dry ingredients, fold 2 cups of frozen blueberries into the flour mixture and then add the wet ingredients and gently mix that until it's just combined and add that to the buttered baking dish and put it on the center rack of the pre-heated oven.
This is going to take about 35-40 minutes to bake and it's a good idea to spin it around once while it's in there and then use a toothpick test to check it for doneness.
I guess what I’m saying is that when you give your kids something sweet to eat try to make sure that it's healthy at the same time!
HINTS:
If you don't have buttermilk, substitute 1 cup of milk with a Tbs of lemon juice added to it instead.