Red, White, & Blue Superfood Trifle

It goes without saying y’all that this is a 4th of July recipe if that wasn’t obvious from the title. What’s not so obvious is the secret ingredient in this recipe that turns the moist, delicious, refined sugar free cake a dark navy blue color.

By no means is this recipe perfect. Upon serving it to Ryan a few days prior to the 4th (he’s of course my official taste tester for all recipes that I post on instagram or here on the blog) I was honestly worried that the cake didn’t look “blue enough”. Which of course sounds silly, especially writing it right now, but this was a real fear given what the recipe resembled and how integral having each of the three colors visible was. To my pleasant surprise, one of the first things Ryan asked me was “How did you make the cake blue?”. Thank goodness. It just goes to show that sometimes when we are in the thick of a project or creative idea that we can be too hard on ourselves and see or not see things that aren’t actually accurate.

So, how did I turn this beautiful cake blue? Well, originally when I thought of this recipe, my plan was to do a refined sugar free sponge cake of sorts, with vanilla Greek yogurt, and then strawberries as well as blueberries. What changed my mind was looking at the cost of good blueberries haha. Ironically I spent 3 times as much on their replacement, but hey- it could be worse! For whatever reason I just hated the idea of buying a full price pint of organic blueberries for this recipe, especially given that the organic strawberries were on sale at Whole Foods for $3.50 (I’m pretty sure I bought 6+ containers over the course of the week that they were on sale).

Since the yogurt was clearly “white”, and the strawberries were clearly “red” (or are they pink??) I needed my third ingredient- the cake to be blue. Since I’ve been on a total whole food (and not necessarily the grocery store, although we do shop there quite a bit) tirade, I knew that using blue food coloring was out of the question for this recipe. I had recalled seeing other creators post on Instagram these gorgeous bright blue smoothies using a special superfood ingredient that I couldn’t quite remember the name of. Sure enough, I googled “superfood that turns stuff blue” and found my answer. Spirulina was my answer; specifically blue spirulina.

Spirulina is a blue-green algae that grown in both fresh and salt water (sounds gross, I know) that is full of antioxidants & nutrients. Sprirulina is considered a superfood because of the many beneficial properties to our health including improving our immune system & preventing some forms of cancer. Good news is too, you can’t taste any of it in this cake recipe! I found a small packet of it off amazon- at a whopping $15. If I learned anything it’s that this superfood is not inexpensive!

When I made the batter for the cake I was so in love with how blue it turned out thanks to the spirulina; like it was nice bright royal blue. As the cake baked in the oven the color definitely faded a bunch from the color of the batter (starting to take on the color of the whole wheat flour possibly). When I took it out of the oven I was feeling a bit dissapointed as I put together the trifles. But, Ryan saw the blue, and that’s all that counts! plus, looking back; it does like like a navy blue tone. Overall, the trifles came together nicely with the addition of fresh cut up strawberries and vanilla 0% fat skyr yogurt from Siggis. This would also probably be super good with vanilla ice cream in place of the yogurt as well! It should also be noted that Ryan went to the liberty of freezing the cake, and defrosting each night, and its held up nicely though that process! Now, on to the full recipe!

Red, White, & Blue Trifle

For the Cake:

Ingredients:

• 2 1/3 cup Whole Wheat Flour

• 1/3 cup Blue Spirulina

• 2 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp salt

• cinnamon

• 3 eggs

• 1 1/2 cup vanilla yogurt

• 1/3 cup olive oil

• 3/4 cup maple syrup

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 and spray a large round cake pan with non stick spray.

2. In a mixer, combine all dry ingredients.

3. Add wet ingredients and mix thoroughly.

4. Transfer batter to cake pan. Bake for 35+ minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean)

For the Trifle

Ingredients:

• Cake

• Strawberries

• Vanilla Yogurt

Directions:

1. Wash strawberries and cut, cube cake.

2. Layer all ingredients, preferably in a clear vessel. Enjoy.

Happy 4th y’all!

Em