My mom dropped by yesterday, and since she’s always open to trying experiments, I made her this lemon blueberry loaf cake. Keeping with this week's theme of baking accidents, I forgot to add the baking soda and had to pull the cake out of the oven and stir it into the hot batter. Despite that, the cake still rose okay and tasted great. It was really tight crumbed, moist, and not too sweet.
My loaf pan is a little larger than most so the cake is kind of wide and I ended up cutting it into squares instead of slices. They looked okay , but I think it might rise higher and look better in an 8 ½ x 4 ½ inch pan. That aside, the cake was really good. It was so good that I wish I'd kept it, but I gave it away and have to make another one.
Lemon Blueberry Loaf Cake Updates
Update: Since posting this recipe I've made it many times -- without forgetting the baking soda! Here are some more recent photos. These versions do not include the icing and the cake is just fine without it. For the lemon, I like to add juice, zest and lemon oil (Boyjian). And I really pack the bread with blueberries.
Recipe
Lemon Blueberry Loaf Cake
Ingredients
- ¾ cup to 1 cup fresh blueberries
- 114 grams unsalted butter, at cool room temperature (1 stick)
- ½ teaspoon teaspoon salt
- 200 grams granulated sugar (1 cup_
- 3 large eggs, room temperature (150 grams)
- 190 grams all purpose flour (1 ½ cups)
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon lemon extract or ½ teaspoon good Boyjian lemon oil
- 2 ½ teaspoons lemon zest**
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 120 grams sour cream, room temperature (½ cup)
Glaze
- 2 teaspoons butter (20 grams)
- ½ cup sifted powdered sugar (55 grams)
- 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice (14 to 28 grams)
Instructions
- Put the berries in the freezer for about 30 minutes to freeze – this will help keep them from staining the batter.
- Preheat oven at 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch loaf pan (9x5 is okay too) and line with a strip of parchment. Dust with flour.
- In a stand mixer with the paddle attached, cream the butter, salt and sugar until light and fluffy. On low speed, add the eggs one at a time letting the mixer go for 30 seconds (increasing speed slightly) after each egg. Scrape sides of bowl often.
- By hand or with lowest speed of mixer, add all but two teaspoons of the flour (leave the 2 teaspoons behind to dust the blueberries). Stir in baking soda, making sure it doesn't clump, then stir in lemon juice, lemon zest and lemon flavoring. Stir in the sour cream. Remove bowl from the stand, toss the frozen blueberries in the remaining two teaspoons of flour, then stir into the batter.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan, smoothing edges. Bake the cake for 60-75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake is clean or a meat thermometer inserted in the center registers 205 degrees F. Make sure to check the cake at about 50 minutes, and if the top is brown, go ahead and cover loosely with foil.
- Set the cake on a rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Loosen sides and let cool for another 20 minutes in the pan. Turn the cake from the pan and let cool completely. Make the glaze. Melt the butter in a bowl, add the sugar and stir until it looks pasty and moist. Add one tablespoon of the lemon juice and stir until smooth. If you need more lemon juice then add the rest. Drizzle over the cake
- **For more lemon flavor, add up to 4 teaspoons lemon zest
Anna says
Lin, thanks for the feedback! I'm going to incorporate your notes into the original recipe. Thanks again!!!
carolyn says
oh, yummy! I think I may bake this up today! Thanks!
LinC says
I made this cake over the weekend, and it turned out really well! I used an 8x4 loaf pan and frozen berries. Both worked fine. However, next time I will toss my blueberries with a little flour to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter.
You definitely need the glaze for this cake to bump up the lemon flavor. I may add more lemon extract or more zest to the cake next time to increase the lemon flavor. Definitely a keeper recipe.
Megan says
You have no idea how excited I was when I saw this post yesterday! I had just picked a gallon of blueberries and I was looking for things to bake with them!
Carol says
Heading off to freeze my blueberries. Thanks for the recipe!
The Blue-Eyed Bakers says
Yummy! Lemon and blueberries are definitely one of the best summer flavor combos! This cake looks perfect!
Bakericious says
this looks yummy, I would like to have a slice 🙂
Anna says
Katherine, they'd be great! But I think they'd be like mini pound cakes rather than actual cupcakes. Still, you could definitely get away with baking them as miniatures.
Sheena, I'm positive frozen blueberries would be fine :).
Sheena says
Do you think I could use frozen blueberries?
Katherine says
Do you think these would work as cupcakes/muffins?
Katrina says
I love that--"in keeping with this week's theme of baking accidents." Isn't that fun with things happen in sometimes large cycles. 😉
Amanda R. says
This looks wonderful and I have everything at home to make this tonight!
Louise says
That looks great, but it also looks like more than 3/4 cup fresh blueberries. Just right.
Anna says
K, if you leave out the lemon extract, you migth want to add another teaspoon of lemon zest.
K says
This looks great! I have a bunch of blueberries I picked over the weekend. I don't have lemon extract thought- do you think the zest and juice is enough?