Lemon Blueberry Cake from Scratch
We're happy to report that our search for the PERFECT scratch Lemon Blueberry Cake is over!
The flavor combination of tangy lemon balanced with sweet blueberries is one of our favorites. You will love this soft, moist cake recipe.
Table of Contents
How to Make Lemon Blueberry Cake
You can find the full, printable lemon blueberry cake recipe further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour three 8 inch round pans. I also like to line them with circles of parchment paper.
- In a medium sized bowl add these dry ingredients: cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to blend, set aside.
- In another bowl or measuring cup combine the sour cream, lemon juice and lemon zest, vanilla extract and lemon extract and set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, mix the softened unsalted butter until smooth. Next, slowly add the sugar and mix on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until fluffy.
- Add the room temperature eggs one 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 flour mixture (three additions of dry ingredients and two of wet). Mix until combined, do not mix above medium speed or overmix.
- Toss the blueberries in 1 Tablespoon flour and gently fold into the cake batter. The cake batter is very thick (as it is based in part on our white almond sour cream cake). Divide the batter between the 3 pans smoothing the tops with the back of a spoon.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let the cakes cool on a wire rack for 5-10 minutes before turning out.
Assembling the Cake
We decided to boost the lemon and blueberry flavors in this lemon blueberry cake recipe with our luscious lemon cream cheese frosting in between the cake layers as well as a delicious blueberry buttercream!
We absolutely love cream cheese frostings. However, there are other options as well! Feel free to change things up as you like! A lemon curd or lemon buttercream filling would taste great too!
Piping a Dam
Since our lemon cream cheese filling is a bit soft, I piped a blueberry buttercream dam about ¼ inch inside of the edge of the cake before filling. This helps to keep the filling right where it belongs as the layers are assembled.
Blueberry Buttercream Frosting
In this frosting recipe, you'll see that the blueberry buttercream's key ingredient is a flavorful blueberry syrup, which is a simple reduction. We love this delicious recipe as well as its speckled appearance!
With this recipe, you will have plenty of extra frosting for decorative piping, borders, etc.
Decorating the Lemon Blueberry Cake
Decorate the cake however you like! Our blueberry buttercream is very easy to work with. After crumb coating the assembled cake in a thin layer of frosting, I used a star tip 21 to make patterns of overlapping rosettes and vertical lines. (For more details on working with a star tip, check out our star tip piping tutorial!)
Here is a peek inside. This cake is ultra moist with a tender crumb and wonderful flavor. Keep it in mind the next time you need a birthday cake recipe, holiday cake, potluck dessert, and more!
Recipe FAQs
More Lemon Cakes
We have so many lemon cakes and frostings for you to try! You can find a few of our favorites below, but check out our full collection of favorites here!: Best Lemon Cakes and Frostings Roundup.
Some of our most popular lemon cakes are our scratch Lemon Cake, Lemon Pound Cake, Strawberry Lemon Cake, and Lemon Blueberry Pound Cake.
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Lemon Blueberry Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened (226g) Shouldn't be overly soft, but soft enough to easily dent when pressed.
- 2 cups sugar (400g)
- 3 large room temperature eggs (if in a hurry, place the eggs in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes)
- 1 cup sour cream (242g)
- ⅓ cup juice and zest of 2 lemons
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
- 1 Tablespoon lemon extract (10g)
- 3 cups cake flour (plain in the UK) — if you do not have cake flour see substitution below (342g)
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder (7g)
- ½ teaspoon baking soda (3g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
- 1 ½ cups wild blueberries tossed in 1 Tablespoon flour — Keep the berries frozen until just before stirring in. Wild blueberries are smaller and are less likely to sink in the cake batter. You can use fresh or frozen I usually use frozen.
For the Blueberry Syrup
- 1 cup blueberries (125g)
- 2 Tablespoons sugar (27g)
- ¼ cup water (57g)
For the Blueberry Buttercream Frosting
- 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened (354g)
- 7 ½ cups 863g powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla (8g)
- ½ to 1 teaspoon salt optional to cut sweetness
- ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons blueberry syrup- more if needed to reach your desired consistency
For the Lemon Cream Cheese Filling
- 1 sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened (113g)
- 8 oz Cream Cheese (Do not use reduced fat or cream cheese in the tub containers. Soften very slightly.)
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice (4g)
- ½ teaspoon lemon extract, optional (2g)
- Zest of One Lemon approximately 1.5 teaspoons 3g
- 3 to 3 ½ cups 345g - 374g powdered sugar, adding more if necessary
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, grease and flour three 8x2 inch round cake pans. Three layers will give you slightly shorter layers but more filling per slice.
- In a medium sized bowl add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk to blend, set aside.
- In another bowl or measuring cup add the sour cream, lemon juice and zest, vanilla and lemon extract. Blend with a fork and set aside
- In the bowl of your mixer, beat the softened butter until smooth. Gradually ad the sugar and beat on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until it is lightened in color and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one 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 flour mixture (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of wet). Mix until combined and smooth, do not mix above medium speed or over mix.
- Toss the blueberries in 1 Tablespoon flour and gently fold into the cake batter. The cake batter is very thick. Divide the batter between the 3 pans smoothing the tops with the back of a spoon.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Let the cakes cool 5 to 10 minutes then turn out.
- Makes 7 cups cake batter
- (This recipe works well for cupcakes too)
For the Blueberry Syrup (Used in the Buttercream)
- To a saucepan add the above ingredients and cook over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase to medium heat and cook until the mixture is reduced a bit. Cool the syrup before using in the buttercream. It can be refrigerated 3 to 5 days in the refrigerator.
- INSTRUCTIONS FOR BLUEBERRY BUTTERCREAM
- Cream the softened butter until smooth. Blend in the vanilla.
- Gradually add the powdered sugar and blueberry syrup until the powdered sugar is incorporated . Mix on medium speed 4 to 6 minutes or until smooth. Slowing the mixer down to a low speed setting during the last minute of mixing helps to eliminate air pockets.
- Makes 6 cups frosting
For the Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cut butter into ½ inch slices and add to the bowl of your mixer, beat until smooth.
- Cut the cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, beating until blended.
- Add the lemon juice and lemon zest. ½ teaspoon lemon extract, (optional) for a stronger lemon flavor.
- Gradually add powdered sugar and beat until well blended.
- This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use let it soften slightly and remix. Do not microwave to soften.
Assembly
- Place the first layer on your pedestal or cake base. Pipe a dam of blueberry buttercream about ¼ inch within the edge of your cake layer and fill with lemon cream cheese frosting.
- Add next layer and repeat.
- Frost the cake with blueberry buttercream. I like to apply a thin crumb coat layer first, and then follow either with a second layer of frosting, or with piping as I did in today's cake. I used a star tip 21 to create the piped designs. Due to the cream cheese frosting, this cake should be refrigerated until within a few hours of serving.
Hi Ben, Not a silly question, now I can see why you might ask. I will add more info in the recipe. We use the liquid and berries together.
I cook the blueberries, water, and sugar on medium heat for about 5 minutes. The volume will reduce and the blueberries will break up a bit as you stir. Depending on how long you cook the berries you will have 1/3 cup maybe a bit more. When you beat this into the buttercream, the berries will be broken up even further. You can see bits of blueberries in the picture of our completed cake. This is another reason we like to use the small wild blueberries. We used Wyman's Brand. Of course, you could use any blueberries available to you. Hope you enjoy the cake.
Hi
The recipe looks so tempting I wanna try it right away . Just one question.. since I don't get frozen or fresh blueberries here can I use dried ones .. will the result be the same?
I'm sorry but we have not used dried blueberries so I can't be sure of the outcome.
I will preface my comment by saying that in general, I prefer frosting to cake. However this cake has made me re-think that position. I was asked to make a lemon dessert for a family get-together. I have several go-to lemon cakes wither with or without glazes, that everyone loves. But I saw this cake and it wowed me. such a vibrant color. And one of my favorite combos - lemon & blueberry. I was a little taken aback at 9 cups of powdered sugar for the blueberry icing, but I followed the recipe exactly. And omigosh! That blueberry frosting is just TOO MUCH! As I said, I love frosting, but I really enjoyed only the first bite of the cake. After that, the lemon cake and lemon cream cheese buttercream filling were overwhelmed by the over-the-top sweetness of the blueberry frosting. The cake and the filling are fabulous. Next time I will use the lemon cream cheese buttercream to frost the finished cake.
Let’s begin with a disclaimer... I am not a baker! However, I am a huge fan of a really good and moist homemade cake. I decided, last night, after stumbling across the recipe that I would give it a try. I love a challenge and baking a cake with 4 different sets of directions (5 if you include assembly,) simply intrigued me. Although there are many steps, everything seemed fairly easy to do. The only thing that I can honestly say is that my blueberry buttercream seemed to taste like powdered sugar. 9 cups was a bit much. So I took the leftover lemon cream cheese filling and mixed it with some of the blueberry buttercream to ice the cake. That was a tweak that I made based on personal preference, but I must say that this cake is divine! I love it. It was definitely worth all the steps and all of the effort. Kudos to the baker!
First off I stupidly tried another blueberry cake recipe from Pinterest and it was a fail. I am new to your site but I have quickly learned to go here first and foremost.
I made the lemon blueberry cake recipe but then just used your lemon cream cheese frosting. I sugared some lemons and blueberries for decorations! Another huge hit! You are making me look very good these days with your recipes!
Thank you for your time, recipes and videos. You have made me fall in love with cake decorating again. I am so glad I found this site!
Thanks so much for your kind words, Sherri! I'm so happy that you liked this recipe- it's one of our favorites too! Your cake is beautiful with the sugared lemons & blueberries! xoxo
What are some piping tips that I could use instead of tip 21? Would 2D work?
Hi Fiona, any star tip will work for a similar design- the larger star tips like 2D for instance would work but of course they will be larger (and use more frosting).
Ok thanks. I'm making this cake for a new mother in our community. I hope it turns out! If it does I'll post a pic of it. :)
Here it is! I think it turned out decent enough. This was my first time piping! Hope you like it. I'm definitely not a pro. :)
You did a beautiful job, Fiona! I never would have guessed that it was your first time piping. Thanks so much for sharing a photo!