This simple blueberry cake is easy to put together, has the most moist and tender crumb and is dotted with heaps of juicy blueberries throughout. It’s packed with so much flavor and is the perfect no-fuss dessert!
Why You’ll Love This Blueberry Cake
There is so much to love about this blueberry cake, but here are my top 3 reasons that will hopefully convince you to try it out!
Super Moist & Tender
This blueberry cake has the most soft and tender crumb thanks to a few key things.
Firstly, this recipe uses a combination of butter and oil to achieve a super moist texture, but still have heaps of flavor. Oil is liquid at room temperature, which means that the blueberry cake will stay moist for hours on end!
Secondly, yoghurt and lemon juice are used to provide both flavor and moisture to the cake. Acidic ingredients help contribute to a more tender crumb (check out my blog post on why vinegar is used in cakes for more info)
Easy & Simple
What I love most about this recipe is that its so easy to put together and doesn’t require any frosting! All you need is a hand mixer and you’re good to go 🙂
Heaps of Flavor
When recipe testing, I was able to achieve the perfect texture much faster than I was able to achieve the perfect flavor. It took me quite a few tries to get the flavor just right!
Because there are so many blueberries in this cake, I found that they would dampen the flavor of the actual cake quite a bit. Because of this, I had to add more flavor (in the form of lemon juice, sugar and vanilla) to the cake itself in order to get a cake that didn’t taste kind of bland and underwhelming.
Interestingly, I don’t usually use vanilla flavoring in my lemon based cakes (like my original lemon cake recipe and lemon & blueberry layer cake with cream cheese frosting), but found that this recipe did need a bit of vanilla in the cake to add that extra oomph of flavor!
How to Make Blueberry Cake
For the full ingredients list, head to the recipe card at the end of the blog post 🙂
Preheat oven to 180 °C (350°F) conventional and grease a 9-inch round cake pan – preferrably a springform cake pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper as well.
Sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Mix together using a whisk and set aside.
In a large bowl add in butter, vegetable oil, sugar and lemon zest. Using an electric mixer (hand or stand mixer) on a medium speed, cream together for 2 minutes until light and creamy.
Add in eggs one by one, mixing well in between each addition.
Add in yoghurt (you can use Greek yogurt or regular yoghurt – though I prefer to use regular yoghurt), lemon juice (make sure to use fresh lemon juice) and vanilla extract or essence. Mix until well combined. Now set your mixer aside as the remainder of the batter will be finished by hand.
Add your pre-sifted dry ingredients to your wet mixture, and using a spatula, fold together until just combined. Do not overmix.
Toss half of the blueberries in a tablespoon of flour (this will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake) and then add the coated blueberries to the cake batter and fold them in with a spatula until just combined. Do not overmix.
Distribute the batter evenly into the prepared cake pan. Scatter the remaining half of the berries evenly across the top of the cake. Drop the cake tin lightly on the counter to remove any large air bubbles and bake for 55 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs on it.
Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, before removing the outer ring of the springform pan. Allow the cake to completely cool before removing the base and parchment paper (see video for tips on how I do this).
Dust the top with powdered sugar and serve. Enjoy!
Commonly Asked Questions
Can I use frozen blueberries?
Yes, you can use frozen blueberries in this recipe. Just make sure you don’t let them thaw otherwise they will bleed into the batter.
How do you stop berries from sinking in cakes?
The best trick to use is to coat berries in flour before folding them into the cake batter. This will prevent them from sinking.
How to store blueberry cake?
Store the cake in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, before placing into the fridge for up to a week.
Simple Blueberry Cake
Print Pin VideoIMPORTANT: For accuracy, I would recommend using the gram measurements provided, as those are the exact quantities I use. Cup measurements are given as estimates (based on US cup measurements) to make it easier for those who do not have a scale.
Ingredients
- 1¾ cups (210 g) all purpose flour
- ¼ cup (30 g) cornstarch
- 2½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt - omit if using salted butter
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter - room temperature
- ¼ cup (52 g) unflavored vegetable oil - I use canola oil
- 1¼ cups (250 g) white granulated sugar
- 1½ tbsp lemon zest - about 1 and 1/2 lemons zested (see note 1)
- 2 large eggs - room temperature
- ⅔ cup (165 g) yoghurt - unflavored and unsweetened, regular and Greek will both work (though I prefer to use regular).
- 3 tbsp (40 g) lemon juice - freshly squeezed
- 1 tsp vanilla essence/extract
- 2 cups (330 g) fresh blueberries (divided in half) - Coat one half of the blueberries in 1 tbsp of flour and leave the rest as is. See note 2 if you want to use frozen blueberries.
- Powdered sugar - for dusting on top
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 °C (350°F) conventional (see note 3 if using a convection oven with a fan) and grease a 9-inch springform cake tin (I use my homemade cake release). Line the bottom with parchment paper as well.
- Sift together flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Mix together using a whisk and set aside.
- In a large bowl add in butter, vegetable oil, sugar and lemon zest. Using a hand or stand mixer on a medium speed, cream together for 2 minutes until light and creamy.
- Add in the eggs one by one, mixing well in between each addition.
- Add in yoghurt, lemon juice and vanilla. Mix until well combined. Now set your mixer aside as the remainder of the batter will be finished by hand.
- Add your pre-sifted dry ingredients to your wet mixture, and using a spatula, fold together until just combined. Do not overmix.
- Toss half of the blueberries in a tablespoon of flour (this will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cake) and then add the coated blueberries to the batter and fold them in with a spatula until just combined. Do not overmix.
- Distribute the batter evenly into the prepared cake pan. Scatter the remaining half of the blueberries evenly across the top of the cake. Drop the cake tin lightly on the counter to remove any large air bubbles and bake for 55 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs on it.
- Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, before removing the outer ring of the springform pan. Allow the cake to completely cool before removing the base and parchment paper (see video for tips on how I do this).
- Dust the top with powdered sugar and serve as is, or with a side of whipped cream or ice cream. Enjoy!
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information are estimates only as they are automatically calculated by a third party application. Actual values may differ based on brands and types of products used.
93 Comments
I just tried this cake in a bundt pan. And it turned out to be the perfect one. I used 1.5x recipe batter.
Ohh this is so awesome to know! Been wanting to try this recipe in a bundt pan 😀
Thanks so much for the wonderful feedback Wajeeha, so glad you loved it 🙂
I just started baking. The simple blueberry cake came out so good. I watched video before I made it. I was so easy to follow along. Everyone loved it. Can’t wait to try another recipe.
Yay! So glad you loved the recipe Celeste and found the recipe easy to follow 😀
This is sooooo delicious! Amazing flavor and the texture was divine, even though I didn’t have any yogurt. I substituted sour cream lightened up with some milk and it still was tender and amazing. I am also at 7,080′ (2,158′ meters) so I used half the baking powder. I used my kitchen scale to measure everything in grams. Sometimes at altitude, things fall for no good discernible reason, but this rose and stayed a beautiful shape.
Yay! So so happy to hear you loved the recipe Diane and that the adjustment to the baking powder allowed it to work well at a high altitude as well! 😀
Really appreciate the wonderful feedback 🙂
Hello MK,
I’m wondering if I could bake this cake in a Bundt pan? If so, any tips? Thank you! Barb
Hi Barb! 🙂
I haven’t tried that myself, and I wonder if perhaps there won’t be enough batter (unless you want to make 1.5x or 2x the recipe). I suppose you could have a shorter bundt cake too if you don’t mind that if you use just 1x the recipe 🙂
My only concern would be the cake releasing from the bundt pan. This cake does develop a nice crust around the edges so I think it would be okay, just can’t be 100% sure sorry!
Would love to hear how it goes if you decide to try it out 🙂
Just served this to friends. Turned out perfect. Really great flavour!
Awesome! So glad everyone loved it Kim 😀
Really appreciate the wonderful feedback 🙂
I do not care for yogurt. Is there a substitution for that?
Hi Cheryl! 🙂 I haven’t tried a substitute for the yoghurt myself so I can’t say for sure, but I think buttermilk or sour cream should act as a good substitute (sour cream may make the cake a little more dense). Hope you enjoy the recipe!
I am really not a baker, and sometimes my cakes are pretty inedible…
This recipe is not only easy to follow, but also the cake is delicious. It reminds me a little of baked German cheesecake (Käsekuchen). I really love it. Thank you Maryam for making it foolproof for someone like me.
Aww thank you so much for the wonderful feedback Tatjana! So glad the blueberry cake was a success and that you found it easy to follow 😀
Very nice recipe chef 👍👌👏.I am making it this afternoon. Thank you for your effort 🌞😎
Thank you! 😀 Hope you enjoy the recipe 🙂
Love this cake and everyone else does too. I made it for my daughters birthday treat she took to work. Could this recipie be used for muffins?
Awesome! So glad to hear you’re loving the recipe Marilyn 😀
Yes you could probably turn these into muffins, you would just need to reduce the cook time to about the 18 min mark or so 🙂
I do have a blueberry muffin recipe that is very similar to this (minus the addition of cream cheese) that you may like to check out 🙂 here’s the recipe: https://cakesbymk.com/recipe/moist-blueberry-muffins/
Hi the blueberries on the top sunk into the cake, and it flopped in the middle. Please can you advise what went wrong?
Hi Cab! 🙂 So so sorry to hear you had a few issues with the blueberry cake. Usually if the blueberries on top sink to the bottom it’s because they either weren’t coated in enough flour, or the batter was too thin. I would recommend using the gram measurements (if you didn’t already) for best results, as it could be that there was just a bit too much oil or butter in the recipe. It could also be because the butter was too soft during the creaming stage. For more tips on why cakes sink check out this blog post: https://cakesbymk.com/recipe/why-did-my-cake-sink-in-the-middle/
Hope that helps for next time Cab!