Blueberry Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
We are so happy to share this delicious scratch Blueberry Cake with you! Frosted and filled with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting, this moist blueberry cake is bursting with flavor.
If you love blueberry desserts, you're going to fall in love with this cake, which not only has blueberry puree in the cake batter, but is speckled with whole blueberries, ensuring big blueberry flavor in every bite.
Table of Contents
What Pairs Well with Blueberry Cake?
Blueberry and lemon are always a winning combination! As soon as we tried the blueberry cake layers, we knew that we wanted to incorporate a lemon frosting.
We actually have a Lemon Blueberry Cake in our recipes section which is a lemon sour cream cake with blueberries folded into the batter. We love that recipe also, but today's recipe incorporates even more refreshing blueberry flavor!
For today's blueberry cake, we are using a Lemon Cream Cheese Buttercream, which is a cross between buttercream and our usual lemon cream cheese frosting. It pipes great, covers the cake well, and most importantly, is delicious!
This blueberry layer cake would also taste great with: our classic lemon cream cheese frosting, blueberry buttercream, lemon buttercream, vanilla buttercream, or cream cheese frosting!
How to Make Blueberry Cake
What makes this cake extra special is that it has pureed blueberries mixed into the batter as well as whole blueberries. There's a lot of great blueberry flavor happening here- it really is the BEST blueberry cake (it's also the only blueberry cake recipe we've made, haha) but it is SO good- we are excited for you all to try it!
Cooking Down the Blueberries
The purpose of our blueberry reduction is to give us the most blueberry flavor without having to add too much additional liquid to the cake batter.
Preparing the Blueberry Layer Cake Batter and Baking
Bake at 350 degrees for 22 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. (Bake time may vary and so keep an eye on your layers in those final minutes)!
Decorating the Blueberry Layer Cake
After filling and frosting the blueberry cake layers on my cake pedestal, I rotated it on a turntable as I smoothed around the sides using a metal bench scraper.
Even when I'm texturing the sides of the cake as I did for our blueberry cake, I try to get it fairly smooth first so that I have an even amount of frosting all the way around.
By the way, these cake layers are dark- you may need to apply the frosting slightly thicker than usual for full coverage.
Also, keep in mind that cream cheese frostings are softer than typical buttercream frostings. Because of this, you may need to pop your frosting bowl into the refrigerator for several minutes before starting the process and also if it becomes too soft to work with.
If the frosting on your cake at any time seems too soft, chill it in the freezer for about 15 minutes to firm everything up.
Texturing the frosting and decorating the top!
After smoothing the final coating of frosting around the sides and top with my bench scraper and spatula, I went in with my small offset spatula and textured the frosting.
Then, around the top edge, of the cake I added blueberries, small lemon wedges, and frosting stars piped with a 6B french tip as well as a star tip 21.
Is it necessary to add coloring gel to the batter?
I don't often add coloring gel to cake batter but for this blueberry cake, it really helps the color!
The natural color of the cooked down blueberries tints the cake batter a light shade of blue-grey. Adding a touch of pink coloring gel (we used a small amount of Wilton Rose) really brightens up the batter to the shade of purple/blue that we associate with blueberries.
It's a beautiful shade and we love the flecks of blueberry as well as whole blueberries that you can see in every slice!
More Fruity Cakes to Share
We hope that you enjoy this blueberry layer cake! If you're craving light, fruity cakes, we have so many more to share with you!
You can check out our full listing of the BEST Cakes for Spring and Summer, but here are a few of our favorites!
Blueberry Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
This moist homemade blueberry layer cake has amazing flavor- perfect no matter what time of year but we especially love it's refreshing flavor in the spring and summer months!
Ingredients
For the Blueberry Cake
- 1 ½ sticks (170g) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 cups (400g) sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 3 cups (342g) cake flour - if you do not have cake flour see Notes below
- 2 teaspoons ( 8g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (3g) baking soda
- ½ teaspoon (3g) salt
- 1 cup (227g) sour cream
- 1 ½ cups (198g) blueberries, pureed in a blender, then cook in ¼ cup water over medium heat until reduced to ¾ cup (181g) Cool before using.
- ¼ cup (54g) vegetable oil ( I use canola oil)
- * Pink Coloring Gel - Optional. We used a small amount to bring out the blue color of the berries
- ½ cup (132g) whole blueberries (fold in the batter at the end of mixing)
For the Lemon Cream Cheese Buttercream
- 3 sticks (339g) unsalted butter, slightly softened
- 1 package (226g) cream cheese, slightly softened ( do not use reduced fat cream cheese
- or cream cheese from a tub, both are too soft for the recipe)
- ¼ cup (57g) lemon juice - Approximate amount of one lemon. (Adjust to your liking)
- zest of 1 lemon
- 7 ½ cups (863g) powdered sugar (sift then measure/weigh)
- *If you need to thin the consistency, you can add milk in small amounts.
Instructions
For the Blueberry Cake
- It is good to prepare the blueberries first. Measure out 1 ½ cups (198g) blueberries. If using frozen blueberries it is best to allow them to thaw before they are pureed. In a saucepan add the pureed blueberries and ¼ cup water. Cook over medium high heat until they are reduced to ¾ cup (181g). If you happen to reduce too much, just add water to reach the ¾ cup mark.
- Cool the reduced blueberries until cool. Can be made in advance and refrigerated.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour three 8 inch x 2 inch round cake pans.
- In a medium sized bowl, add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to blend for 30 seconds. Set aside.
- In another bowl, combine the sour cream, blueberry puree and oil. Blend with fork and set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, mix the butter until smooth, Gradually add the sugar and mix on medium speed 3 to 5 minutes or until lightened in color and fluffy. If using a hand mixer, you may need to mix a bit longer.
- Add the eggs 1 at a time mixing until the yellow of the yolk disappears.
- Add the flour mixture and the sour cream mixture alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture (3 additions of dry ingredients, 2 additions of wet ingredients).
- Add pink coloring gel at this time. I added just a small amount to brighten the color. Mix until combined and smooth. Do not mix above medium speed or mix too long.
- Fold in ½ cup blueberries
- Bake at 350 degrees for 22 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Keep an eye on it, ovens can bake differently.
- Let cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes, then turn out.
Lemon Cream Cheese Buttercream
1. Add the slightly softened butter in the bowl of your mixer and mix until smooth
2. Add pieces of cream cheese to the mixing bowl. The cream cheese should be soft enough
that it combines easily into the butter mixture.
3. Gradually add the powdered sugar. Add the lemon juice, lemon extract and zest. Do not
over mix. The longer it is mixed the softer it becomes. If it becomes too soft, refrigerate
10 minutes or so and it will firm up.
Makes about 5 cups of frosting.
Notes
Substitution for cake flour:
Using all purpose flour (plain in the UK) for each cup of flour in a recipe, remove 2 Tablespoons of flour replace with 2 Tablespoons cornstarch (cornflour in the UK). This recipe has 3 cups of flour so you will measure out 3 cups of all purpose flour, remove 6 Tablespoons and replace with 6 Tablespoons cornstarch, whisk to blend.
*This recipe makes approximately 7 ½ cups of batter.
Has anyone had any luck making this cake vegan? For example, using vegan butter, flax eggs, vegan sour cream? I find cakes to be pretty forgiving to these modifications but I wanted to ask first. Thanks!
The instructions for the icing mention lemon extract, but I don’t see it listed in the ingredients, so I don’t have any on hand . I hope the icing turns out just as well without it!
Hi Denise, Your frosting should turn out very well without the lemon extract. We decided to make it an optional ingredient for stronger lemon flavor but forgot to add it to the list. Let us know what you think just using lemon juice and zest.
hi how might i tailor this recipe to a 2 layer instead of 3?
Hi Lauren, This recipe make 7 1/2 cups batter. Leaving the recipe as written, you can use two 8 inch round pans that are 2 inches deep. You will need to increase the baking time a bit so keep an eye on it. We use 3 pans because we like having thinner layers plus 2 layers of frosting.
The cake will be just as good baking in 2 pans. The cake will be done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Hope you will enjoy the recipe.
Thanks, do you also have the nutritional values of the frosting? Per 1/4 cup for example.
Hi! I’m new to baking. I’m going to use this recipe for my sons first birthday (he’s obsessed with blueberries) and I’m doing a two tier 5 x 2 round. I’m assuming I’ll need to adjust the cooking time? I know I’ll have too much batter if I make it as is, but would you suggest cutting cook time?
Hi Jordan, We have not baked in 5x2 inch pans. Use this as a guideline -- a 6x2 inch round pan can hold 2 cups of batter, baking at 350 degrees the baking time will be 25 to 30 minutes. Your baking time will be less but I am not sure how much less. The cake will be done with a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
The recipe does not say, but for the flour do you measure then sift or sift then measure?
Hi Monique, We do not sift the cake flour but it is fine to do so. First measure then sift. We measure by spooning flour into a measuring cup then leveling off with a knife. We add the dry ingredients to a bowl then whisk for at least 30 seconds to blend the dry ingredients . The whisking also aeriates the flour. I hope you will enjoy the recipe.
My daughter requested a blueberry cake for her birthday and your recipe looks delicious! I would prefer to make it in a 9x13, or larger if necessary. Have you tried that, and how long do you suggest baking?
Thanks so much?
Hi Debbie, This recipe makes approximately 7 1/2 cups of batter. We have not baked this cake in
a 9x13 pan but I think it would be fine to do so. With only 7 1/2 cups batter the cake will
probably be under 2 inches high, the frosting will add more height. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to
40 minutes, check at 30 minutes. The cake will be done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached.
Thank you so much! I should have mentioned I would be making two layers 😋
An easier way to make substitute cake flour is to put the two tablespoons of cornstarch in your cup first and then fill with flour