This gluten-free, Vegan Blueberry Almond Bundt Coffee Cake is no ordinary cake. It's not only a good looking cake made to impress your friends or family, but its tastiness will exceed all your expectations. The softness of the cake is complemented by the slight crunch of the layered almonds, the ultimate juiciness of the fresh blueberries and the silky sweet smooth blueberry glaze that brings all flavours together. 

We can never get tired of summer fruits.  One can only wish summer would stay longer and spoil us more with the bright and long days, and with all the marvellous array of fruits that we love so much. Fresh seasonal fruits are the best. Yes, we can find blueberries out of season, but it's not the same thing. Don't you agree? If the fruits or veggies that we purchase at the farm market are not in season, we might as get the frozen version since they're not grown and harvested domestically. 

Talking about seasonal fruits, I've realized that I haven't given blueberries the full attention and love they deserved in one of my recipes. I mean, can you get tired of blueberries? Not I! Blueberries and more blueberries. Never enough berries on my plate. :)

This cake right here is a pure delight, my friends. It's a cake adapted after a delicious gluten-free recipe of The Bojon Gourmet. When Alanna's blueberry coffee cake recipe (click here to see the recipe) popped in my inbox a few weeks back, and I clicked on the recipe, I was drooling. Yes! Alanna's scrumptious cake got to me. I know how tough it can be to achieve the right texture and taste with a gluten-free cake, and knowing that she's a pro with the gluten-free baking,  it didn't take me long to decide that I'll make this cake.

And so I did! I've adapted some of the ingredients to plant-based ingredients, changed a few, and gave the overall recipe a Soulfully Tasty spin. Result? One successful plant-based, gluten-free, tasty, you can't stop eating coffee cake. :) I'm not modest here because it's that good, my friends.

You know how much I care for gluten-free recipes, and it does take a while to understand how the gluten-free flours work. It's a lot of trial and error attempts when creating a recipe from scratch, and it can be demotivating to see a wrecked cake. But how else to learn? In this case, my plant-based friends, no trial and error here. I'm bringing to you my plant-based version that you must make.

I have to admit that I was a bit nervous when choosing the plant-based ingredients. The right amount of wet ingredients is needed when working with a mixture of gluten-free flours and not only. When you replace gluten, you need other thickeners to give the cakes that fluffy texture. The gluten substitutes are not necessarily categorized as healthy. I personally avoid to work with xantham gum, for example, but it's just my choice. So, choosing to make this cake plant-based, on top of gluten-free, really pushed me to bring my A-game to the table. And as I love a good challenge, I wanted nothing more than make it successful.

And so, my friends, what I did with the original recipe, I replaced the classic unsalted butter with nut butter. Any nut butter will do. The secret here is to mix the batter longer. There is no risk in overbeating a gluten-free batter. It does need that overtime mixing. If you add an extra minute or two when you use your stand mixer, not to worry. Eggs were replaced with apple sauce and the sour cream with cashew yougurt. Again, when it comes to the plant-based yogurt, please feel free to add your preference. I always go for my favourite brand of plain cashew unsweetened yogurt because I love the mild flavour, and it's a good source of healthy fats. And last, I've decided to replace the vanilla extract with rum extract. When I want to add a special kick to a cake recipe, I resort to some of my exclusive extracts collection, like dark rum or bourbon extract (or real bourbon…shhh, it's a secret :)).

The final transformation that I went for was making a blueberry glaze and adding it in the middle of the cake. I know! Brilliant!  You must know that I like to play with my recipes and in the kitchen. I like to experiment not only with colours but with my recipes as well. I always need to change something up or switch things around just because that’s how I go about things. I like creativity and originality. In this case, it was terrific experimenting. Adding half of the glaze in the middle does bring an extra tasty touch to this lovely cake. Glaze in the middle and on top? The middle name of this cake is irresistible. :)

Ok, I need to stop typing now and let you get right to the recipe. Jump right in, my friends. Go get those fresh blueberries from the market, or a local farm if you're as lucky as I am, and start baking. And if you don't have access to fresh blueberries, don't stumble. Get frozen ones and make sure you thaw them well, and drain the extra water content. Or, the best part, you can replace the blueberries with your favourite summer fruit. Berries would work best, but hey, there are no limits. You do you remember? :)

Happy baking, my friends! Stay healthy and happy.

Until next time!

Warmly,

T