Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake

Tender, moist lemon coffee cake loaded with blueberries crowned with a crunchy, sweet crumb topping and drizzled with a tart lemon glaze. A fun way to change up blueberry muffins.

I was microwaving a bowl of Trader Joe’s Instant Multigrain Triple Berry Instant Hot Cereal for breakfast one day last week, and my son came up stairs and asked if I was making blueberry muffins. My family loves my streusel blueberry muffins and apparently just the smell of blueberries cooking draws them in to the kitchen in hopes of finding blueberry muffins.

So when the weekend rolled around, I decided I’d better make some blueberry muffins for my son, but I also wanted to make something new to share on the blog, so my lemon blueberry coffee cake was born.

I used my blueberry muffin recipe as the base for the cake, but change it up by adding lemon zest to the batter. Coffee cake is always better with a crumb topping, and to give it another pop of lemon, I drizzled a tart lemon glaze on top and let it flow down the sides.

You can drizzle the glaze on with a spoon, but I like to use a quart size Ziploc bag. Put the bag in a tall drinking glass or mug, fold the edges over the top of the mug, then fill the bag with your glaze. Seal up the bag and snip off a tiny bit of the corner of the baggie with scissors. Then just drizzle the glaze over the top of the coffee cake.

If you want to get drips down the side of the cake, just put a little puddle of glaze along the edge and it will make a pretty little drip down the side of the cake. If your glaze is too thin the glaze just runs down the side. If it’s too thick, it won’t drip down. You can do a test drip before you put the glaze in the baggie if you’re unsure if you’ve got the consistency just right. 

If your family loves blueberry muffins as much as my family does, they’ll love this coffee cake too. It takes blueberries to a whole new level.

Lemon Blueberry Coffee Cake

Yield: 12 Servings

Print Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest
• 2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

Crumb Topping

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted

Icing

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350º. Spray a 9-inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray with flour.

Prepare crumb topping and set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, vanilla and milk. Mix in lemon zest. Add flour mixture and mix just until combine. Stir in blueberries.

Spread batter evenly into prepared pan. Sprinkle with crumb topping.

Bake at 350º for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge and remove ring. Drizzle icing on cake. Cool completely before serving. (Unless you’re like us and would rather eat it hot even though the cake doesn’t cut as well.)

Crumb Topping

In a small bowl, combine sugar, flour, and butter. Mix until mixture is crumbly.

Icing

Whisk together powdered sugar and lemon juice to create a thin glaze.

More Coffee Cake recipes you might like:

Marionberry Cherry Crumb Cake, Barbara Bakes
Cinnamon Coffee Cake, Barbara Bakes
Orange and Almond Coffee Cake, Diethood
Banana Bread Coffee Cake, Crazy for Crust
Banana Streusel Coffee Cake with Maple Glaze, Shugary Sweets