Vegan Blueberry Cornmeal Coffee Cake

Preheat oven to 350F for 15 minutes. Grease a 8 inch square baking dish. Line it with parchment paper and spray with non stick cooking spray. In a small bowl combine the almonds, brown sugar and cinnamon; set aside. The oil spread can be melted on stove top or microwave oven or even in the oven while it’s preheating.

Combine together the flour, whole cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. I found medium grind whole cornmeal. It is not as fine as the regular cornmeal you find in the grocery stores. So I had to powder it in the food processor a couple of times, to get a fine texture.

The original recipe uses 1/2 cup buttermilk. Since I wanted to make it vegan and also had some blueberry flavored soy yogurt I decided to use that. So I measured approximately 1/3rd cup of yogurt blended it with water to get 1/2 cup measurement. To that add the melted butter, extracts, vinegar and applesauce. Whisk until well blended.

Stir the wet ingredients into dry ingredients until just moistened. Fold in 2/3 cup blueberries. If using frozen blueberries, do not thaw before adding to batter, because the color will bleed.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Top with remaining blueberries. Sprinkle the almond mixture on top. Tap the pan lightly a couple times so that the topped blueberries and almonds sticks to the batter.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool the pan on a wire rack.

Remove the cake from the pan after 10 minutes and transfer the cake directly to the wire rack. The cake is quite light, so you will have to be very careful while tilting the pan.