Mmmm…Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake!
One of my favourite flavour combinations is lemon and blueberry. Together, they are the perfect marriage of flavours. I love all things lemony and I wanted to use up some of the blueberries I had from last year so I could restock my freezer with blueberries to come this Summer!
There’s nothing that screams Summer like pulling over on the side of the highway when you see “Blueberries For Sale”! I always admire those who pick blueberries and sell them on the side of the road. Picking blueberries is painstaking work. One lady was telling us about fighting off mosquitoes and how labour-intensive it is to pick all those luscious berries. She told us that once she even came across a mama black bear and bear cub! Humans are not the only ones who love wild blueberries!
With the blueberries I have left from last Summer, I’ve been making jam, sauces, and mostly Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake. I have had a lot of requests for the cake, so I made FOUR in one week! I made one to serve some out of town visitors, one for a friend, one for a four year old’s birthday party, and one for our Amish neighbours (the husband was in a very bad horse and buggy accident on the highway).
I’ve had many people asking for the recipe for my Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake, so I figured I should just share it on the blog.
I do have a funny story about the cake. Little One asked me, “Mom, why is this one called coffee cake if there is no coffee in it?”
Good question! I told Little One that growing up, I always knew coffee cake as being a cake that was a cinnamon-flavoured white cake with a crumb topping and white icing drizzled on it, and it was something that the adults would eat with coffee. Though this cake does not have coffee in it, I guess it’s a coffee cake because it’s the kind of cake that goes well with coffee when you’ve got visitors! Either I really know my stuff or I’m good at making things up on the fly.
Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake
The cake itself is my basic vanilla cake recipe. Blueberries and Summer go hand in hand, but you can use other fruits. This cake batter works well with peaches and blueberries together too! My husband likes a crumble or streusel topping on pies and cakes, so for this recipe I use one.
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1/2 c butter, softened
- 1 c Greek yogurt, plain/original
- 1 c granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp freshly grated lemon zest
- 2 Tbsp vanilla (I use my homemade vanilla instead of vanilla extract)
- 1 1/2 c blueberries, fresh or frozen. If using frozen, thaw and make sure to drain.
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2 c all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
Topping:
- 1/2 c granulated sugar
- 3/4 c all purpose flour
- 5 Tbsp butter, softened
Icing/Glaze:
- 1 c confectioner’s sugar
- 2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Grease 9″ spring form pan.
- Prepare topping by combining sugar, flour and butter in a small bowl and mix until crumbly. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar. Beat until smooth. Add vanilla, eggs, and yogurt, and mix well. Add lemon juice and lemon zest, and make sure all ingredients are mixed well.
- In a medium sized bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Add flour mixture to wet mixture, and mix until combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Do not over combine.
- Pour cake batter into prepared pan. Pour topping over cake batter. Place in oven on middle rack and bake for 45-50 minutes. **NOTE** I baked this cake at a friend’s house once, and it took 60 minutes to bake. Keep in mind, oven temperatures may vary. You can do the toothpick test in the centre of your cake to see if the cake is cooked. If the toothpick comes out clean, cake is done.
- In a small bowl mix confectioner’s sugar and freshly squeezed lemon juice until smooth.
- Remove cake from oven and let cool on rack. Once cake is cooled, remove from cake pan and drizzle icing over top. Enjoy!
Note: There were times when I didn’t have any fresh lemons in my kitchen, and I have used a few drops of lemon extract or even lemon essential oil. The lemon flavour is very pronounced with the lemon essential oil. I actually like it better that way. I really love lemon. My husband prefers a more subdued lemon flavour and likes to have the main star be the blueberries.
This is a super easy cake to make and I’ve even used this cake batter for my Strawberry Rhubarb Cake and Rhubarb Red Currant Cake. Whatever fruits are in season, this cake recipe works well for me all the time.
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There is just something really special about the lemon and blueberry combo right.This will be delicious and I must try the lemon blueberry tapioca too. YUMMO!
Blueberry and lemon are so good together, right? <3
I love the flavor of lemon and of blueberries so this would be a great dessert for our family. I have saved the recipe and I thank you for sharing it with us. When I was a child, my brothers and I picked blueberries almost every fine morning. The mosquitoes were not so bad at that time of day.
I have never gone blueberry picking! Elva, I hear it’s a lot of work, but so worth it, I bet!
I made this on the weekend and it turned out great! I baked it for closer to 60 minutes. It was delicious!
Thanks for letting me know! Looks like 60 minutes is the standard then!
I made this cake over the weekend for our Canada Day celebration! It was a hit with all our guests. I baked it for 60 minutes. I was going to substitute strawberries in place of blueberries to be more Canada Day like with rhe red berries and white cake. Stuck to the original recipe and it was so good!
It is blueberry season here in Maryland, and I bought an extra quart just to make this cake. I followed the directions to a ‘t’, but it turned out mushy and heavy. It baked for an hour (I checked it at 45m, 50m and 55m), and the knife came clean when I tested it. I looked at other recipes and saw that most require three cups of flour and one or two more eggs. Very disappointing. 🙁
Hi Susan! Thanks SO much for letting me know 🙁 I really do appreciate you telling me it turned out the way it did 🙁 It’s one of my husband’s favourite cakes. I’m not sure why it didn’t turn out. I have made this cake many times in the past few years, and several times in the past two weeks for different community events. It takes about 50 minutes in my oven. As I mentioned in the post, I did bake this cake at a friend’s house before, and it took 60 minutes to bake in her oven at the same temperature.